FILE - This May 13, 2015 file photo shows a framed portrait of the ousted Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, that hangs on an office wall in Paraguay's Ciudad del Este diocese. The former Paraguayan bishop who was ousted by Pope Francis amid several controversies in his diocese has died of problems related to diabetes in a Buenos Aires hospital, Friday, Aug. 14, 2015. Livieres Plano was 69. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, File) (The Associated Press)
ASUNCION, Paraguay – A former bishop in Paraguay who was ousted by Pope Francis amid controversies in his diocese has died of problems related to diabetes.
Asuncion Archbishop Edmundo Valenzuela tells The Associated Press that former Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano died on Friday in a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Livieres Plano was 69.
Livieres Plano was a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement and spent 10 years overseeing the diocese of Ciudad del Este, a sprawling border city in eastern Paraguay. He was ousted in September, and the Holy See has never specified why. The bishop claimed he had been persecuted for his conservative orthodoxy by liberal parishioners and fellow bishops.
An Associated Press review in June found that the bishop made several questionable spending decisions involving diocese property and funds.
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