Just one question...

'Live and let live...': What measures would Pope Francis apply to a Bishop

who brought scandal upon the English Catholic Church?

'Regarding the matter of Monsignor Ricca, I did what Canon Law required and did the required investigation. And from the investigation, we did not find anything corresponding to the accusations against him. We found none of that. That is the answer. But I would like to add one more thing to this: I see that so many times in the Church, apart from this case and also in this case, one looks for the “sins of youth,” for example, is it not thus?, And then these things are published. These things are not crimes. 

The crimes are something else: child abuse is a crime. But sins, if a person, or secular priest or a nun, has committed a sin and then that person experienced conversion, the Lord forgives and when the Lord forgives, the Lord forgets and this is very important for our lives. When we go to confession and we truly say “I have sinned in this matter,” the Lord forgets and we do not have the right to not forget because we run the risk that the Lord will not forget our sins, eh? This is a danger. This is what is important: a theology of sin. So many times I think of St. Peter: he committed one of the worst sins denying Christ. And with this sin they made him Pope. We must think about fact [sic] often.

The ferula used by Pope Francis at the 200th anniversary of 

Pope Pius VII's re-establishment of the Jesuit Order.

But returning to your question more concretely: in this case [Ricca] I did the required investigation and we found nothing. That is the first question. Then you spoke of the gay lobby. Agh… so much is written about the gay lobby. I have yet to find on a Vatican identity card the word gay. They say there are some gay people here. I think that when we encounter a gay person, we must make the distinction between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of a lobby, because lobbies are not good. They are bad. If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person? 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point beautifully but says, wait a moment, how does it say, it says, these persons must never be marginalized and “they must be integrated into society.”

The problem is not that one has this tendency; no, we must be brothers, this is the first matter. There is another problem, another one: the problem is to form a lobby of those who have this tendency, a lobby of the greedy people, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of Masons, so many lobbies. This is the most serious problem for me. And thank you so much for doing this question. Thank you very much!'

~ Pope Francis, 29 July 2013

I am just wondering whether if this same process is applied to our English bishop, does not the bishop concerned either a) keep his 'job' in Arundel and Brighton or b) remain a priest, or bishop in another role in another See in obscurity or remain as a priest in the same See? Option c) is laicisation, but this did not happen to Mgr Ricca and for some reason I cannot get his case off my mind.

Why have we not yet heard of Pope Francis's acceptance of this resignation? I really don't think His Holiness was the last to know of this matter. What's with the delay? According to the former bishop Kieran Conry, his actions were not 'corrupt' and did not contribute to him being a 'bad bishop' because his own situation meant that he did not preach about sexual matters to his flock. Had he been a traditional Catholic, then, in that case, he would have been a hypocrite. Therefore, there is no hypocrisy to be seen here. Will he find a similar point of view in Rome? Fasten your seat belts now and pray especially to St Michael the Archangel. This Pope is unpredictable and few can preempt his decisions. Something smells fishy and I'm not talking about Friday's mackerel. I trust we are not being kept 'on hold' until after the Synod.