November Grab Bag

The Removal of Bishop Strickland, Transgender Persons and Baptism, and More

The Removal of Bishop Strickland

This weekend began with the news that Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas had been removed from office by Pope Francis, a relatively rare move in the governance of the Catholic Church. The decision to remove Strickland was widely expected and comes after a Vatican “visitation,” or investigation, in June, following several years of growing opposition to Pope Francis and his teaching.

Perhaps the last straw was a tweet by Strickland in May, in which he stated, “I reject [Pope Francis’s] program of undermining the Deposit of Faith.” Last year, Strickland was a co-signer of a letter seemingly accusing Francis of heresy for his teachings on the reception of communion in his apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi (to which I responded here). Strickland has also been a critic of the synodal process and warned that the just-completed Synod could be “schismatic.” Reporting suggests that the Vatican visitation was also focused on issues of governance in the Diocese of Tyler, a claim supported by a statement made on Saturday by Fr. Timothy Kelly, a priest of the diocese, outlining in general terms some of the problems with Strickland’s leadership.

Bishop Strickland had also been opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, ignoring guidance from the Vatican and suggesting that Catholics should not receive the vaccine because it had been tested using cells derived from tissue from an aborted fetus. Strickland also opposed restrictions on public gatherings during the worst period of the pandemic, and eventually came to lend his support to the COVID-19 conspiracies promoted by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Strickland had also expressed doubts about President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in 2020, and in December of that year participated (by video) in the Jericho March, a gathering of conspiracists in Washington, DC to protest the election results which prefigured the events of January 6, 2021. In his statement, Fr. Kelly suggests that Strickland suffered from an “addiction to celebrity” fueled by his social media posts and association with far right political and religious causes.

Strickland’s removal is relevant for theologians specifically for at least two reasons.