Catholic bishop in Puerto Rico says his removal by Pope Francis is ‘totally unjust’

CNA Staff   By CNA Staff

 

Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres. / Diocese of Arecibo.

Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Mar 9, 2022 / 06:05 am (CNA).

A Catholic bishop in Puerto Rico described his removal from office by Pope Francis on Wednesday as “totally unjust.”

Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, who has led the Diocese of Arecibo since 2010, said he had been asked to resign because he “had not been obedient to the pope nor had I been in sufficient communion with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico.”

The Holy See press office announced on March 9 that the pope had relieved the 57-year-old bishop of the pastoral care of his diocese. The Vatican did not give a reason for the pope’s decision.

The pope appointed Bishop Álvaro Corrada del Río, S.J., bishop emeritus of Mayagüez, as apostolic administrator of the diocese in the north of the island of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States.

In a March 9 declaration, published on the diocesan website, Fernández Torres strongly objected to his removal.

He said: “I deeply regret that in the Church where mercy is so much preached, in practice some lack a minimum sense of justice.”

“No process has been made against me, nor have I been formally accused of anything and simply one day the apostolic delegate [the pope’s representative in Puerto Rico] verbally communicated to me that Rome was asking me to resign.”

“A successor of the apostles is now being replaced without even undertaking what would be a due canonical process to remove a parish priest.”

He went on: “I was informed that I had committed no crime but that I supposedly ‘had not been obedient to the pope nor had I been in sufficient communion with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico.’”

“It was suggested to me that if I resigned from the diocese I would remain at the service of the Church in case at some time I was needed in some other position; an offer that in fact proves my innocence.”

“However, I did not resign because I did not want to become an accomplice of a totally unjust action and that even now I am reluctant to think that it could happen in our Church.”

The imminent removal of Fernández Torres was reported on March 8 by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

The news agency said that the bishop had clashed with other bishops in Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island with six dioceses.

ACI Prensa explained that Fernández Torres had initially resisted sending his seminarians to the new Interdiocesan Seminary of Puerto Rico, approved by the Vatican in March 2020.

The bishop of Arecibo had also supported conscientious objection to compulsory vaccination against COVID-19 in a statement published on Aug. 17, 2021.

Pedro Pierluisi, the governor of Puerto Rico, issued an executive order that all government and healthcare workers, both in public and private institutions, must be vaccinated, as well as workers in the hotel industry.

In his letter, the bishop said that “it is legitimate for a faithful Catholic to have doubts about the safety and efficacy of a vaccine given that what the pharmaceutical companies or drug regulatory agencies say is in no way a dogma of faith.”

“And that safety and efficacy are relevant and necessary data for moral judgment,” he explained.

ACI Prensa reported that Fernández Torres refused to sign a joint statement on Aug. 24 by the Puerto Rican bishops which said that “there is a duty to be vaccinated and that we do not see how a conscientious objection can be invoked from Catholic morality.”

The news agency said that Archbishop Ghaleb Moussa Abdalla Bader, the apostolic delegate to Puerto Rico, requested the resignation of Fernández Torres, who reportedly refused, citing reasons of conscience.

It said that the bishop was summoned to the Vatican but did not make the trip due to the pandemic.

Fernández Torres was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 27, 1964. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Arecibo in 1995, at the age of 30.

In 2007, Benedict XVI named him an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Juan de Puerto Rico. Three years later, he was appointed bishop of Arecibo.

ACI Prensa said that Fernández Torres was an outspoken critic of gender ideology, describing new legislation in February 2021 as “religious persecution” and a violation of parental rights.

The news agency said that the case of Fernández Torres recalled that of the Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, who was removed from office by Pope Francis on Sept. 25, 2014.

Livieres Plano had overseen a thriving seminary in his Diocese Ciudad del Este. He was dismissed after an apostolic visit amid accusations of a lack of collegiality.

The bishop was also criticized for his handling of the case of a priest who had served as the diocese’s vicar general until shortly before the visitation. The priest had faced allegations of sexual impropriety, which he denied.

Livieres Plano said that he had refused to sign a resignation letter “on his own initiative, thus wanting to testify to the end of the truth and the spiritual freedom that a Pastor should have.”

He decried what he said was an attempt to impose “ideological uniformity” on Paraguay’s bishops using “the euphemism of ‘collegiality’”.

The bishop, who was ordained a priest of Opus Dei, died on Aug. 14, 2015, due to a liver condition.


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14 Comments

    • Correct! Here we only hear the side of the said bishop. Let’s not rush to judgment especially if we are of the type who loves to bash the Pope. Judgment demands that the other side be heard also – not just implied speculatively.

    • There is something more. According to Crux he was also not cooperating in the suppression of the traditional Mass.

  1. Now we are assured that the policy in Malta and Sicily of suppressing and removal of priest’s, without further notice or explanation now bishops who hold to Apostolic Tradition has extended directly to and from the Vatican. Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres persecuted “because he had not been obedient to the pope nor had I been in sufficient communion with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico.” Bishop Fernández Torres asks where and how was he disobedient?
    Why is a conscientious right to refuse the Vax when it’s a conscientious right for adulterers and active homosexuals to receive the Eucharist in Malta and Sicily, and of course in Germany, its Synodal Way granting free rein to conscience so wonderfully tolerated by our pontiff.
    No response from a Vatican now in imitation of imperial Rome? Although even imperial Rome had a senate that [usually] required answers. Except when Caesar’s like Caligula held the reins.
    Musing on this distortion of justice one might wonder why fellow Puerto Rican bishops remain silent? Perhaps fearfully subdued. Perhaps, the fearful evolutionary phenomenon identified by Peter Beaulieu as invertebratism.

    • You are wrong to imply that conservative bishops and priests are upholding the apostolic tradition. The apostolic tradition is held by the reigning Pope, that is Peter, and those who are with and under Peter faithfully and loyally. It’s preposterous to infer that just because one thinks and acts conservatively in ecclesial matters, even if one goes against Peter, upholds the apostolic tradition. That’s the height of theological absurdity and symptomatic of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

  2. Now we are assured that the policy in Malta and Sicily of suppressing and removal of priest’s, without further notice or explanation now bishops who hold to Apostolic Tradition has extended directly to and from the Vatican. Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres persecuted “because he had not been obedient to the pope nor had I been in sufficient communion with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico.”
    Bishop Fernández Torres asks where and how was he disobedient? Why is a conscientious right to refuse the Vax when it’s a conscientious right for adulterers and active homosexuals to receive the Eucharist in Malta and Sicily, and of course in Germany, its Synodal Way granting free rein to conscience so wonderfully tolerated by our pontiff.
    No response from a Vatican now in imitation of imperial Rome? Although even imperial Rome had a senate that [usually] required answers.

    • True. We can know through both Faith and Reason that a “Vaccine Mandate” is not part of The Dogma Of Faith

      Not only would a Faithful Catholic be opposed to accommodating those who would use abortive fetal tissue in testing and manufacturing vaccines and call that “good”, when it is possible to get fetal tissue from beloved sons and daughters who have died a natural death with their parent’s consent, but these experimental vaccines, by virtue of the fact that they are experimental, could not provide anyone with the ability to make an informed consent and thus as provided for in The Nuremberg Code.

      https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM19971113337200

      Regarding the Spike Protein Of Covid 19 which has the addition of a FURIN receptor and mimics hepcidin, it is important to note that FURIN regulates HEPCIDIN, which regulates Iron, the proper balance of which is necessary for maintaining health and fighting disease.

      These “vaccines” do not provide immunity from Covid 19 or stop the spread of Covid 19, but do have the potential, in certain susceptible persons to cause iron deregulation due to the fact that the Spike Protein Of Covid 19 which contains the addition of a FURIN receptor, mimics hepcidin, which regulates iron and thus the virus, by possibly increasing the level of hepcidin and the vaccine, by targeting the Spike Protein which contains a FURIN receptor, both have the potential to deregulate iron, the proper balance of which is necessary for maintaining health and fighting disease.

  3. A good, orthodox bishop gets removed for no apparent reason. But perverts like Zanchetta get protected and promoted. More hypocrisy from our current Pontiff.

  4. It’s hard to tell at this early stage of the apocalypse whether Pope Francis works for pootin’ or the other way around.
    Then again, they both may be under the authority of a higher “power”, other than the Lord God whom they should serve.

  5. It’s amazing how in this time, individuals who choose to follow a vocation that has an intrinsic requirement for total obedience, and then are unable and/or unwilling to follow their vows!

  6. [T]he Puerto Rican bishops . . . said that “there is a duty to be vaccinated and that we do not see how a conscientious objection can be invoked from Catholic morality.”
    .
    Yeah . . . wonder what the good bishops will say if the Pfizer documents indicate the vax was not in fact ready for prime time?
    .
    It’s going to be an interesting couple of years for sure.

  7. I’m sure St. Athanasius was accused of “lack of collegiality” by the Arian bishops. And St. John Fisher by the bishops who knuckled under to Henry VIII

  8. It is as I thought.
    It appears that this bishop is the only one who refused to sign on with TC.
    Mm. Rings a few bells.

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