'FALSE MESSAGES'

BALTIMORE (OSV News) -- Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, whom Pope Francis removed from pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, in 2023, read an open letter Nov. 13 in Baltimore asking "what it will take for more than a few bishops to finally speak up against the false messages constantly flowing from the Vatican under the leadership of Pope Francis?"

"You gather here today, present-day apostles, as the church and, therefore, the world stand perched on the edge of a cliff," he said in a letter he read outside the hotel where the U.S. bishops were holding their annual fall plenary assembly. "And yet you who are entrusted with the keeping of souls choose to speak not a word of the spiritual danger which abounds."

Bishop Strickland was removed from his office Nov. 11, 2023, following an apostolic visitation prompted by the bishop's social media posts in May accusing Pope Francis of "undermining the deposit of faith." Pope Francis appointed Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin as apostolic administrator to oversee the diocese until a new bishop is appointed.

The pope's decision to remove Bishop Strickland followed the bishop's address at an Oct. 31, 2023, public gathering in Rome, where he read from a lengthy letter, attributed to a "dear friend," that accused Pope Francis (among other things) of being a "usurper of Peter's chair." Later, the bishop opined himself that Pope Francis was supporting an "attack on the sacred" coming out of the Vatican.

Since his ouster from the diocese, Bishop Strickland has remained active on social media, with an X (formerly Twitter) account with more than 215,000 followers. He posted his Nov. 13 letter to bishops and the lay faithful on his Substack website under the title "What will it take?" -- a phrase he repeated seven times in the 1,647-word letter.

With a small audience, Bishop Strickland stood at a podium with a microphone and read the letter aloud in front of the Marriott Waterfront Hotel, where more than 200 bishops were attending the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Nov. 11-14 meeting. It seems that Bishop Strickland did not attend the meeting.

In his letter, he warned the bishops about God's judgment on bishops who do not guard the church, and accused them of "silently watching as the Synod on Synodality took place, an abomination constructed not to guard the Deposit of Faith but to dismantle it, and yet few were the cries heard from you -- men who should be willing to die for Christ and His Church." He accused the "Francis-controlled Vatican" of orchestrating the Synod on Synodality, which concluded its final meeting Oct. 27, to dismantle "Christ's Church by replacing the structure of the Church as Our Lord instituted it with a diabolically-inspired new structure of 'synodality' which in actuality is a new Church that is in no way Catholic."

Drawing on the words of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and Scripture, especially Jude 1 and John 21, in which Jesus restores his relationship with Peter following his crucifixion and resurrection, Bishop Strickland argued that synodality is promoted by "the enemies of Christ" and accused Pope Francis of not loving "the Truth that Jesus Christ incarnates."

"Sadly, his (Pope Francis') actions and his policies which promote a relativized version of truth that is not truth at all propel us to a devastating conclusion: the man who occupies the Chair of St. Peter does not love the truth and seeks to reshape it in the image of man," Bishop Strickland said.

He pointed specifically to an address Pope Francis gave Sept. 13 in Singapore to a group of young people, in which he said, "All religions are paths to God." Bishop Strickland said that with this statement, "Pope Francis has denied an integral part of the Catholic faith" that could lead to the loss of souls.

"What I find so difficult to understand is that modern-day apostles, men who are ordained to be guardians of the faith, refuse to acknowledge this, and instead ignore or even promote this deadly falsehood," he said. "Every bishop and cardinal should publicly and unequivocally state that Francis no longer teaches the Catholic faith."

Before he read the letter, Bishop Strickland said that the letter comes from his "heart, a heart that loves Jesus Christ and our Catholic faith, and is called to love everyone," and said he offered the letter in that spirit.

The USCCB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.