France: Touvet Appointed Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon

Age 58, he has been bishop of the diocese of Châlons-en-Champagne since 2015. Dominique Rey, aged 71 and Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon for 23 years, only retains a share of government over pastoral life.

The coadjutor bishop is appointed alongside the diocesan bishop with immediate right of succession in the event of resignation or death of the titular bishop. Touvet took office on December 10 alongside Rey who, within 4 years of the retirement age in the Church, specifies: “When my episcopal office ends, he will be called to succeed me.”

In an unprecedented way, Touvet will be responsible for the administration, clergy, and religious communities of the diocese. At the beginning of the year, explains Vatican News, the diocese was the subject of an apostolic visit, at the request of Francis, led by Msgr. Antoine Hérouard, Archbishop of Dijon.

In this diocese with flourishing vocations, Rey, from the Emmanuel Community, was criticized for, among other things, having welcomed into the La Castille seminary certain seminarians with a fragile profile, refused by other dioceses. Subsequently, after often numerous ordinations, an abnormal number of withdrawals from priestly ministry was observed.

Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille and member of the Dicastery for Bishops, took care, with this compromise solution, not to humiliate Msgr. Rey, recognizing his errors of discernment, but also his missionary zeal. The Conference of Bishops of France announced that Bishop Touvet's welcoming Mass was celebrated on Sunday, December 10, 2023 at Notre-Dame-de-la-Seds cathedral in Toulon.

“After an ‘audit’ commissioned by Rome last February and the suspension of ordinations, Rey, the bishop of this southern diocese, will be placed under the supervision of another bishop: Touvet,” Jean-Marie Guénois announced on the Figaro website on November 23.

The Vaticanist sees in Pope Francis the recognition “of a certain number of pastoral intuitions – in this atypical bishop – without, however, forgiving him for errors of discernment in several situations and, above all, a lack of follow-up of the numerous initiatives that he had undertaken, some of which went wrong and resulted in bitter failures.”

However, he adds, “The dynamic Bishop Rey has made this diocese in the south of France the laboratory of a flourishing Church, with undeniable successes. And Francis, who encourages this pastoral audacity, therefore preferred not to impose a resignation but to appoint a ‘coadjutor’ bishop to work beside him.”

And he explained that, regarding the reception reserved by “Msgr. Rey, coming from the Emmanuel charismatic community, to which he has been close, to the traditionalist communities of the Catholic Church, that this question, even if it played a role, is not central in the papal decision.”