(RNS) — As rumors swirl that Pope Francis may ask for the resignation of Catholic Bishop Joseph Strickland, the firebrand conservative who oversees the Diocese of Tyler in Texas said he has heard nothing from the Vatican but signaled he would not give up his post voluntarily.According to public Vatican records, Pope Francis met on Saturday with Archbishop Robert Prevost, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, and Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio, or ambassador, to the United States, among others. What the three discussed in the meeting was not made public, but a conservative-leaning website, The Pillar, has claimed the meeting touched on whether to ask for the resignation of Strickland, who has stoked controversy in recent years for everything from resistance to COVID-19 vaccines to criticizing the pope.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to requests to confirm The Pillar’s account of the confab.
Rumors of Strickland being asked to resign, amplified by LifeSiteNews and other right-wing Catholic websites, come after an apostolic visitation to Strickland’s diocese in June, a rare disciplinary investigation by the Holy See. The visitation, in turn, followed a November 2021 incident in which Strickland was privately chastised by Pierre during a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Reached by email on Tuesday, Strickland told Religion News Service he was unaware of any resignation request from the Vatican, saying, “I have received no information on this from Rome.”
Asked whether he would resign if the pope asked, Strickland suggested he would resist, possibly forcing the Vatican to …
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