Sunday, March 03, 2013

Pope sacked ‘two bishops a month'

A Vatican diplomat said Pope Benedict XVI has achieved a "cleansing of the episcopate" during his pontificate, saying he has removed from office two or three bishops a month.

Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendia, the apostolic nuncio to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, said: "This Pope has removed two or three bishops per month throughout the world because either the accounts in their dioceses were a mess or their discipline was a disaster."

The Spanish-born archbishop, speaking in Madrid, added: "There have been two or three instances in which they said no, and so the Pope simply removed them."