French bishop forced to resign over relationship with woman, Vatican says

Then Bishop of Verdun Jean-Paul Gusching, in Lourdes, southwestern France on November 8, 2022. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP

Pope Leo XIV pressured a French bishop to step down over his "relationships with women," according to the Vatican, with the defrocked clergyman hitting back on Wednesday, November 5, at the "disgusting" situation. When announcing his resignation as the Bishop of Verdun in late September, Jean-Paul Gusching had hinted that health issues lay behind the decision to hang up his crosier.

Subscribers only

'Pope Leo XIV sends the world a directly political message with his first apostolic exhortation'

But the Holy See's embassy to France on Tuesday revealed that those were but "one element" behind that decision, with a preliminary canonical investigation into his behavior underway and the civil courts alerted to the matter.