The Bishop of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon in southern France has resigned at the request of Pope Francis.

Bishop Dominique Rey, who resigned on 7 January, had been bishop of the diocese since 2000 and was credited with fostering a significant number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and at odds to the sharp decline in vocations across France.

In 2020, Rey ordained nine men to the sacred priesthood and six new deacons. By the end of 2021, the diocese had 215 incardinated priests, an increase from 187 in 2000, surpassing even the figure in 1950 of 210.

A strong advocate of the so-called “Benedict option” of mutual enrichment between different liturgical traditions, Rey is a member of the charismatic Emmanuel Community but is also known for celebrating the Tridentine Mass. He has also welcomed a large number of new communities, some of which celebrated exclusively the Traditional Latin Mass.

However, he also drew criticism for being too laissez-faire in his approach to the communities he allowed into the diocese and an apparent willingness to accept seminarians and priests rejected by other dioceses.

This ultimately led to an unusual situation in June 2022 when the diocese announced that the annual priestly ordinations were to be suspended with less than a month’s notice before their proposed date. The suspension came after a “fraternal visit” to the diocese by Archbishop Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille, which was initiated by the Vatican, raised questions about the restructuring of the seminary and the conduct of pastoral policy in the diocese.

Pope Francis appointed Bishop François Touvet, former bishop of Châlons in northern France, as a coadjutor bishop to the diocese in November 2023, putting him in charge of religious communities and the training of priests and seminarians. At the end of last year, ordinations resumed after a hiatus of more than two years.

As coadjutor bishop, Touvet had the immediate right to succession and will now take over as bishop of the diocese from Rey.

The Herald spoke to a cleric of the diocese who offered his reflection on Rey’s resignation and the future of the diocese under Bishop Touvet:

“Bishop Touvet has a lot more freedom now; it remains to be seen what he will do,” said the cleric, who wished to remain anonymous due to ongoing sensitivities around the matter.

“One of the big questions raised by the Holy See was Bishop Rey’s [welcoming] of traditional communities and traditionalist clergy. Traditionis Custodes has not been implemented, and whether Bishop Touvet will now move to do that is an open question.

“Bishop Rey liked to compare his diocese to a garden where all flowers flourish. In my opinion, Bishop Rey is being penalised for having done something; some of the things [he did] I wouldn’t want a bishop to do myself; some of them I would. But he is being penalised for having done something when the rest of them have become administrative technocrats who administer decline.

“He has been quite successful in many ways, and when things have gone wrong, he has never swept anything under the carpet. There has never been a question of him hiding abuse by clergy. He always dealt with these things very strictly.”

The cleric added: “Under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the question of traditional stuff was becoming more possible, so he [Rey] thought, ‘If this is one of the plants in the garden, then that is that.’ He had no problem with it. And he came to see that it was a plant that bore good fruit, especially in terms of vocations.”

Regarding the succession of Bishop Touvet as a result of Rey’s demise, the cleric had this to say:

“Bishop Touvet is not a modernist; he is quite conservative. But he is a company man. That is to say that if Rome gives him a to-do list, he will get on with it. He will regret it, but he will do it.

“Bishop Rey would have celebrated his silver jubilee as bishop of the diocese in September of this year. It seems to me a tragedy that he is being removed before being allowed to celebrate that. Personally, I thought he would be allowed to go on and quietly slip away after it.”

Reflecting on his resignation, Rey told Famille Chrétienne, the French Catholic weekly, that “in the face of misunderstandings, pressure, and polemics that are always harmful to the unity of the Church, the ultimate criterion of discernment for me remains obedience to the Successor of Peter”. (Catholic Herald, excluding headline)

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