Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a 59-year-old bishop in the pontiff's native Argentina, after the bishop had only been in position for just under two years leading an already troubled diocese.
Bishop Carlos María Domínguez of the San Rafael diocese said his resignation on 13 February was “for reasons of a personal nature”, while he did not offer any further specifics regarding those reasons.
“I want to ask for forgiveness for what I did wrong, for what I didn’t do and for what I didn’t know how to do,” Domínguez said in a communiqué, though, again, he offered no further details.
In an interview with <em>ACI Prensa</em>, the spokesman for San Rafael diocese, Father José Álvarez, explained the request for forgiveness as something “anyone who leaves his place” would offer as a matter of course.
Domínguez, however, acknowledged that he “can sense the perplexity that this news may cause" among the faithful of the diocese.
“[B]elieve me,” he wrote, “this decision causes me deep pain.”
Álvarez also told <em>ACI Prensa</em> that Domínguez is no longer in the diocese.
Domínguez’s predecessor in San Rafael was Bishop Eduardo María Taussig, who resigned in 2022 at the age of 67, after an 18-year reign marred in later years by controversy over disagreements with local Catholics, ostensibly over the proper posture for and method of receiving Holy Communion.
Also during Taussig’s later years in office, the Vatican <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2020/11/protests-continue-in-argentina-over-decision-to-close-conservative-seminary"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">intervened</mark></a> to close San Rafael’s diocesan seminary and send the seminarians to other formation houses in the country.
Previously there had been tensions between the bishop and the seminary – seen as a hotbed of conservatism – for some time. When the seminary became a stronghold for opponents of Covid-19 restrictions, which mandated that Holy Communion be received only in the hand, the matter came to a head and Rome stepped in.
“This decision [to close the seminary] was taken following the precise directives from the Holy See,” Taussig said at the time.
Two years later, after prolonged protest and protracted tumult, Taussig was gone.
“[I]t’s public knowledge that the diocese has suffered a very significant crisis, which even led to the closure of the local seminary,” Álvarez – who was diocesan spokesman in 2022 – told the diocesan paper, <em>De Buena fé</em>.
In recent years all across Argentina there has been significant turnover on the episcopal bench of those selected by Pope Francis.
Just last year, Archbishop Gabriel Antonio Mestre – who succeeded the man who is now Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez – <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2024/05/argentina-shaken-by-ouster-of-top-bishop-successor-to-vatican-doctrine-czar"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">resigned the leadership</mark></a> of the Archdiocese of La Plata in Argentina after less than nine months in the job.
Pope Francis had plucked Mestre from the Diocese of Mar del Plata, Argentina’s fifth-largest city and a popular beach resort. Following Mestre's resignation, the Pope appointed to men to that diocese in quick succession, but neither of whom ever actually took up the office.
The first of Francis’s appointments to Mar del Plata, Bishop José María Baliña, until then an auxiliary of Buenos Aires, renounced the office less than a month after accepting it, citing struggles in his recovery from ocular surgery and saying he “rushed” into accepting the job.
The second appointment, Gustavo Larrazábal, had allegations of harassment and abuse of power levelled at him from at least one woman, which was reported on by the local <em>La Capital de Mar del Plata </em>newspaper, and which concerned behaviour stretching over a period from 2007 to 2013.
The apostolic nunciature in Argentina claimed “full confidence” in Larrazábal – who maintained his innocence – and Pope Francis ordered that Larrazábal remain in his post as an auxiliary of San Juan de Cuyo.
Argentinian Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who was one of Pope Francis’s first episcopal appointments in 2013, was <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2022/03/former-vatican-bishop-sentenced-for-sexual-abuse-in-argentina"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">found guilty</mark></a> by an Argentinian court in 2022 and sentenced to more than four years’ prison time for aggravated continuous sexual abuse of two former seminarians.
As general secretary of the Argentinian bishops’ conference, Zanchetta had worked closely with the man who became Pope Francis, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who as Archbishop of Buenos Aires was president of the conference.
In 2017, Francis <a href="https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2019/03/few-abuse-scandals-involve-francis-as-directly-as-that-of-argentine-bishop"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">brought Zanchetta to Rome</mark></a> after accepting his resignation from the see of Orán for unspecified health reasons and created a position for him inside the Vatican’s sovereign asset management office, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).
<em>Photo: A wall of posters with the image of Pope Francis alongside a caption that translates as: "Milei hates him, the people loves him. Where do you stand?", in reference to criticism of the Pope at the time by Argentine congressman and presidential candidate Javier Milei, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 4 October 2023. (Photo by LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images.)</em>
