In a petition they call on the new Pope to review the case. "Your Holiness, Francis, we have a suspicion that the Archbishop Robert Bezak was wrongly accused by the influential people in the Church and later depose," it said.
Bezak, a 53-year-old Redemptorist, had served as archbishop of Trnava since 2009. He made organisational changes in the Trnava archdiocese and complained of difficulties in accounting for missing funds from the period of his predecessor, Archbishop Jan Sokol.
Last year Slovakian civil prosecutors announced they were opening an investigation into charges of misappropriation under Archbishop Sokol.
In a surprise move, however, Pope Benedict XVI removed Archbishop Bezak from the pastoral care of his archdiocese last July.