VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis temporarily expelled a German bishop from his diocese today because of a scandal over a 31-million-euro project to build a new residence complex, but refused popular calls to remove him.
The Vatican didn’t say how long Bishop Franz- Peter Tebartz-van Elst would spend away from the diocese of Limburg. But it said Limburg’s newly named vicar general, the Rev. Wolfgang Roesch, would run the diocese during Tebartz-van Elst’s “period of time away.”
Roesch had been due to take up his duties as Tebartz-van Elst’s deputy on Jan. 1 but will start running the dioceses immediately, the Vatican said.
In a statement, the Vatican said the situation in the diocese had become such that Tebartz-van Elst “could no longer exercise his episcopal ministry.”
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