Cayenne Bishop Alain Ransay, whose predecessor was barred from ministry by a Vatican inquiry, has ordered the 13 Oblates of Mary Immaculate missionaries to leave French Guiana by late June.
He cited disloyalty as his reason for his decision. Media reports say he accused the missionaries of voodooism, fraud, drugs and sexual abuse in at least one case.
The Oblates refuted these charges as "fake news" but accepted their expulsion after 46 years in the French department in the northeastern corner of South America.
At a news conference, they said the bishop decided their departure with the order’s headquarters in Rome without consulting them.
“We said to the bishop ‘why didn’t you speak to those of us who are here?’,” said Fr Paulin Vital, their spokesman.
The Cayenne diocese was already a problem for the French Church. Its previous bishop, Emmanuel Lafont, was secluded in a monastery in France after a Vatican inquiry apparently found sexual relations with two men and moral harassment of a woman in French Guiana.
Parishioners have held protests and launched an online petition in support of the missionaries.
“There's such a gap between these charges and what we have seen,” organiser Sabine Ainoux told the local Radio Péyi. “There is a mutual incomprehension ... we wonder what the evidence is.”
One caller agreed, saying: “The Church preaches unity but all I see in this is division.”
The Oblates said the deal between Bishop Ransay, who was appointed in 2021, and the order’s headquarters in Rome came as a complete surprise.
“We see each other regularly, we talk often … he knows he can call me,” said Fr Joseph Dumé, the diocesan chancellor who has been in French Guiana since 2007. “Learning it like that was very difficult for me.”
The Oblate missionaries have refused to participate in official diocesan events since November, when they first learned of Bishop Ransay’s talks with Rome. The bishop has declined offers to discuss his decision.
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