Pope Backs Down after Defending Nigerian Bishop Rejected by Locals

A Nigerian bishop whom Pope Francis had fiercely defended has resigned after a five-year, sometimes violent, standoff with rebel priests and faithful who rejected him as an ethnic outsider, the Vatican said on Monday. The case of the Vatican versus the people of the diocese of Ahiara in southwestern Nigeria had become a rare battle of wills that tested the power of papal authority and could set a precedent for future appointments. A Vatican statement said the pope had accepted the...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - lundi 19 février 2018