The Bishop of Lugano resigns

The inner tension was evident in Bishop Valerio Lazzeri. Visibly emotional, he appeared before the media on Monday afternoon in Lugano’s bishop’s palace to announce what had been an open secret since Friday: the resignation of his office as bishop. Pope Francis entrusted him with this office almost nine years ago and has now accepted his resignation. The bishop’s seat is thus officially vacant.

The Pope has appointed Alain de Raemy, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, by decree as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Lugano pending the appointment of a new bishop.

retreat to prayer

Bishop Lazzeri justified his resignation with carefully considered words. He has always exercised his episcopacy with joy and from the heart, “but especially in the last two years, inner fatigue has grown – and that has increasingly taken away from me the necessary impetus to lead a diocese”.

He mentioned the representative and financial-administrative tasks that had become more and more of a burden to him. Likewise, he increasingly struggled with the authority that such a position requires. “I can no longer imagine myself in this office,” said the bishop, who now wants to withdraw into prayer and reflection, away from the public limelight. He asked forgiveness for his inadequacy.

Valerio Lazzeri did not name a single episode that could be interpreted as a key moment for his decision to resign. But in his nine-year episcopate there were numerous moments that presented him with great challenges, such as the closure in 2018 of the daily newspaper “Giornale del Popolo”, which belonged to the diocese. Not only the decision, but also the type of communication by the bishop met with harsh criticism.

A priest and his lover

Several scandals in which priests of the diocese were involved were certainly also a burden. Only recently did a priest begin a prison sentence who admitted to having relieved his own parents and a foundation of several hundred thousand francs in order to put up with his lover.

The incident of a clergyman from the diocese who raped his 18-year-old godchild in Rimini was also serious. who then took her own life. Recently, Bishop Valerio also relieved a priest of Russian origin from his position after he was repeatedly found drunk and groped a woman in a discotheque.

And not forgotten is the incident involving a former vicar general who lived for years with an unregistered Finnish domestic worker. In all cases Bishop Valerio Lazzeri did not shine through transparent communication. Many Catholics in Ticino would have wished for clearer words.

But dealing with the administrative-financial affairs of the diocese was certainly a particular burden. “I don’t have a university degree in economics or commerce,” Bishop Valerio said at the media conference. These things are far removed from his spiritual and theological knowledge, which is in the foreground for him.

For its part, the Swiss Bishops’ Conference regretted the resignation, as announced on Monday. Lazzeri had been in the service of church life in Switzerland for nine years. He was particularly involved in theological research and training.

Now the search for a suitable successor begins. The Catholic news portal “kath.ch” has already brought Padre Mauro Giuseppe Lepori, 63, Abbot General of the Cistercian Order in Rome, into play as a promising candidate. But a new appointment can take a lot of time.

Ad interim, Auxiliary Bishop Alain de Raemy will administer the diocese of Lugano as Apostolic Administrator. The 63-year-old auxiliary bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Friborg has already installed himself in the bishop’s palace in Lugano, as he explained at the media conference. A former chaplain of the Swiss Guard, de Raemy lived in Rome for seven years. He therefore speaks excellent Italian, which he immediately proved. He even wanted to try his hand at the Ticino dialect, he said to the smiles of the media workers, with whom he immediately got in touch in an uncomplicated manner: “You listened to me, now I’ll listen to you.”

The diocese of Lugano is a comparatively young diocese and only broke away from the diocese of Basel in 1971, to which it was formally subordinate as an apostolic administration up to that point. Among the previous bishops, the late Eugenio Corecco, a representative of the Comunione e Liberazione movement, who founded the theological faculty in Lugano in 1992, was particularly influential. Ernesto Togni was bishop from 1978 to 1986, Giacomo Grampa held this office from 2004 to 2013. With the resignation of Bishop Lazzeri, the diocese of Lugano now has three bishops emeritus.