In September 2014, Pope Francis removed a controversial traditionalist from his role as bishop in a Paraguayan church. Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano was bishop in Paraguay’s second largest city, having been given the role by Pope Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI. But scandal would soon surround Livieres, a conservative reformer who opposed what he thought was the growth of left-wing ideologies in the church.
As Vatican expert Austin Ivereigh highlights in his book ‘Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and his struggles to convert the Catholic Church’, Livieres would appoint a priest with an unsavoury past, sparking anger from the Vatican.
He recruited ultranationalist preist, Father Carlos Urrutigoity, who had a shocking record of sexual abuse. Livieres gave Urrutigoity the responsibility of running a seminary.
As Mr Ivereigh highlights, Urrutigoity had been subject to a number of sexual misconduct allegations in Argentina, his home country.
He spent 30 years there, based in the fringes of the Catholic traditionalists.
Catholics would soon learn of Urrutigoity’s expulsion from a schismatic group in Argentina, a sex abuse lawsut, and the scandals linked to other allies within his group in Pensylvania, the US.
In 2014, Livieres made Urrutigoity his vicar-general, and while the two had avoided consequence during Benedict XVI’s tenure, Pope Francis took firm action against the problematic pair.
In July of the same year, Francis sent allies to shut down the seminary, but Livieres refused to resign following a request from the Vatican’s head.
Mr Ivereigh notes that Livieres did not take his removal well, ranting about “earthly devils” and claimed to be the victim of “ideological persecution”.
Opus Dei distanced itself from the comments made by Livieres, stating that his opinions were “entirely and exclusively his own”.
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Influential figures in the Catholic Church have called out the Pope for allegedly promoting “idolatrous worship” of symbols of fertility after pan-Amazon bishops visited the Vatican in October.
In a letter signed by 100 Catholic Church figures, the Pope’s actions were also described as “sacreligious”.
Amazonian bishops had merely displayed a statue of “fertility goddess” Pachamama, a god worshipped predominantly in the Andes and also known as the ‘Earth Mother’.
The letter from Francis’ critics added: “We respectfully ask Pope Francis to repent publicly and unambiguously of these objectively grave sins and of all the public offences that he has committed against God and the true religion, and to make reparation for these offences.
“We respectfully ask all the bishops of the Catholic Church to offer fraternal correction to Pope Francis for these scandals, and to warn their flocks that according to the divinely revealed teaching of the Catholic faith, they will risk eternal damnation if they follow his example of offending against the First Commandment.”