VATICAN CITY
Associated Press
BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis declined Saturday to renew the mandate of the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, tapping instead a deputy to lead the powerful congregation that handles sex abuse cases and guarantees Catholic orthodoxy around the world.
In a short statement, the Vatican said Francis thanked Cardinal Gerhard Mueller for his service. Mueller’s five-year term ends this weekend and he turns 70 in December. The normal retirement age for bishops is 75.
Francis could have kept him on, but declined to do so. The two have clashed over the pope’s opening to allowing civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. Mueller has insisted they cannot, given church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.
The Jesuit pope tapped the No. 2 in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Jesuit Monsignor Luis Ferrer, to succeed Mueller.
It was the second major shakeup this week, after Francis granted another Vatican hardliner, Cardinal George Pell, a leave of absence to return to his native Australia to face trial on sexual assault charges.
Mueller and Pell are two most powerful cardinals in the Vatican, after the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and their absences will likely create something of a power vacuum for the conservative wing in the Holy See hierarchy.
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