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.

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