PARIS (Reuters) – Pope Francis has accepted Paris archbishop Michel Aupetit’s resignation, the French Bishops’ Convention stated in an announcement on Thursday.
Final week, Aupetit had despatched a letter to the pope providing to resign following French media studies a few relationship with a lady.
The bishops’ convention stated Pope Francis had appointed former Marseille archbishop Georges Pontier as Apostolic Administrator of Paris.
Aupetit’s departure comes because the Catholic Church in France is reeling from the publication in October of a significant investigation which discovered that French clerics sexually abused greater than 200,000 kids over the previous 70 years.
Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, archbishop of Reims and head of the French Bishops’ Convention, stated early final month that France’s Catholic Church would promote actual property and, if wanted, take out loans to arrange a fund to compensate the victims.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Enhancing by Peter Graff)
