Anti-vaccine Texas bishop Joseph Strickland, who agrees that “you cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat” and wanted to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, was fired after a Vatican investigation and will be replaced at the Diocese of Tyler.
Bishop Strickland was under investigation by the Vatican and had previously declined the opportunity to resign, and in an open letter in September challenged the Pope to fire him. “I cannot resign as Bishop of Tyler because that would be me abandoning the flock,” he said. The right-wing “Coalition for Canceled Priests” held a conference earlier this year to support him during the investigation. The Vatican said that the decision to fire him “came after an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope last June in the Diocese of Tyler”. According to Catholic media, the investigation also looked at the handling of financial affairs at the diocese.
The thing about the Catholic Church, which American Catholics often have trouble with, is that someone is in charge of it.
