A French bishop who oversaw a vocations boom in his diocese but was criticized for his governance style resigned Tuesday at Pope Francis’ request.
Bishop Dominique Rey announced Jan. 7 that he was stepping down as Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, southern France, hours before the Vatican confirmed his resignation.
At 72, Rey is three years below the typical retirement age for diocesan bishops.
Following Rey’s appointment to the Fréjus-Toulon diocese in 2000, the diocese gained a reputation for welcoming new communities from across the ecclesiastical spectrum, including traditionalist groups.
The Vatican imposed a rare moratorium on ordinations in the diocese in 2022 amid concerns over allegedly lax vetting procedures. A year later, the diocese was subject to an apostolic visitation, reportedly prompted by abuse cases in some communities, the activities of traditionalist groups, questions over economic management, and accusations that Rey had an authoritarian governing style.
Following the visitation, Pope Francis appointed Bishop François Touvet as coadjutor bishop with wide powers of governance, and the veto on ordinations was mostly lifted. At that point, Pope Francis asked Rey not to resign, according to the bishop’s Jan. 7 message.
Rey wrote: “Immediately after my appointment, in a private audience on Dec. 23, 2023, the pope encouraged me to assume this collaboration [with the coadjutor bishop] in a fraternal spirit, and not to resign.”
He added: “At the end of a first year in which the suspension of ordinations had been lifted for almost all candidates, the nuncio informed me that the Holy Father was asking me to resign as diocesan bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, without my having been aware of any new elements concerning those which had motivated the appointment of the coadjutor bishop.”
Rey said 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.”
Although the Vatican gave no reason for the pope’s resignation request, sources close to the situation told The Pillar they believed Rey’s relationship with his coadjutor had become increasingly strained, which may have prompted Rome to ask him to step aside.
Rey, a member of the Emmanuel Community, is well-known in the French Church as a dynamic evangelizer. He invited dozens of Catholic movements to his diocese, leading to a significant number of priestly ordinations each year and the flourishing of religious and lay communities.
In 2012, Rey ordained 12 priests out of a national total of 96 — more than any other diocese except Paris.
Communities that have found a home in the diocese include Brazil’s Canção Nova and Shalom Catholic Community, Argentina’s Institute of the Incarnate Word, and Ecclesiola, a French private association of the faithful.
Critics argued that Rey’s approach to welcoming communities was too laissez-faire. But Rey defended his policy.
“People are always suspicious of anything that upsets their habits and right-thinking ways,” he told Le Monde newspaper. “Time will tell, give us 20 or 30 years!”
In a Jan. 7 interview with the Catholic weekly “Famille chrétienne,” Rey said: “My mission does not belong to me, I hold it from the pope, like any bishop. It was entrusted to me by him, it is taken away from me by him. I therefore sent a letter of resignation to the Holy See, by mail, on Dec. 31.”
Rey reiterated that no new evidence had been presented to him. He said the reasons for requesting his resignation were virtually the same as those mentioned to him as a reason to provide him with a coadjutor.
“I am mainly criticized for welcoming too broadly priestly and religious communities or vocations, in particular from the traditional world, as well as dysfunctions in the economic and financial management of the diocese,” he told Famille chrétienne.
He added: “Certainly, I have launched many initiatives. The majority of them have borne fruit and are sustainable. Nevertheless, some – I think around 10% – have been problematic. When you launch projects, you always take a risk. I have sometimes lacked discernment or support. However, when dysfunctions were identified, I have always taken the necessary canonical and administrative measures.”
The Vatican began to act on its concerns over Rey’s policies in 2020. Rome asked the then Archbishop Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseilles to conduct a “fraternal visit” in November of that year, while Bishop Sylvain Bataille of Saint-Étienne reportedly looked into the diocesan seminary.
Rey said that in the wake of the fraternal visit, he began to address questions raised by the Vatican about “the restructuring of the seminary and the diocese’s welcome policy.”
At the center of the concerns was Fraternité Eucharistein, a community founded in 1996 in Switzerland but closely linked to Rey and the Fréjus-Toulon diocese. Rey welcomed the community to his diocese in 2002 and ordained its founder, Nicolas Buttet, in 2003.
The group underwent a canonical visitation in 2021, after which its governance and formation process were reformed, and its founder asked to abstain from public ministry and live at a monastery.
Rey’s difficulties deepened in February 2023, when the apostolic nunciature in France announced an apostolic visitation led by Dijon’s Archbishop Antoine Hérouard.
Observers said the visitation was inspired not just by Rey’s willingness to accept seminarians, priests, and communities rejected by other dioceses. Other factors included his openness to Catholics with traditionalist sensibilities at a time when the Vatican was clamping down worldwide on the Old Mass and Rey’s allegedly abrupt management style, which was said to have offended some clergy.
Rey is not the only French bishop to resign amid criticisms of his leadership style. The Archdiocese of Strasbourg underwent an apostolic visitation in June 2022 that led to the resignation in April 2023 of its Archbishop Luc Ravel, who critics had accused of governing in an aloof and authoritarian manner..
Another case is that of Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, a former vicar general of Rey’s diocese and one of his protégés.
In December 2023, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes conducted a fraternal visit to the two seminaries in the Bayonne diocese. In June 2024, Aillet also received a fraternal visit from Dijon’s Archbishop Herouard due to concerns about “governance, the role of the bishop, and how unity and communion in the diocese is guaranteed.” But no measures against Aillet have been announced.
In recent years, the French hierarchy has seen a high attrition rate, with notable departures including that of Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit.
One bishop-elect even resigned before his episcopal ordination, citing burnout.
