A prominent French archbishop has resigned but strongly defends his turbulent six-year tenure.
Luc Ravel, the Archbishop of Strasbourg, announced his resignation on April 20. However, he gave no reason for his resignation.
“Peace being the supreme good (…), I have presented my resignation to the Holy Father, for whom I pray every day”, he said.
Ravel, 65, resigned from his position, despite being a decade away from the customary retirement age for diocesan bishops.
Archbishop Ravel is known for being heavy-handed and authoritarian and for his commitment to fighting against sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
His approach to leadership had increasingly isolated him from his priests and the Catholic community of Alsace.
The Catholic community of Alsace had long been calling for his resignation and an online petition for this attracted more than a thousand signatures.
As a new archbishop, Ravel did not take the time to meet his priests, angering a large segment of the clergy.
According to reports, he spent too much time in his native Paris and relied more on his secretary than his closest associates.
During Holy Week, Archbishop Ravel did not celebrate the Chrism Mass with the archdiocese priests. He thereby avoided confrontation with demonstrators who were demanding his removal. But his absence aggravated the complaints of priests who said he spent little time with his clergy.
Vatican investigated Archbishop Ravel
The Vatican investigated Archbishop Ravel’s governance in June 2022.
Their focus was a number of complaints about his authoritarian approach.
Bishop Stanislas Lalanne of Pontoise and Archbishop Joël Mercier, former secretary of the Dicastery for the Clergy, conducted the investigation.
The report has never been released.
The former prefect for the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, summoned Ravel to Rome for a meeting, during which he was asked to resign and send a letter to the French president, as required by the concordat.
However, the resignation letter never materialised, leading to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Pope’s Secretary of State, summoning Ravel to Rome again.
This time, the Archbishop cited health reasons for not attending.
The Holy See is expected to transfer Archbishop Ravel to a titular diocese, as was done with Bishop Jacques Gaillot in 1995. Titular sees are usually reserved for bishops who are not diocesan ordinaries, and the move does not require the approval of the French president.
Sources
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