Overview
- Pope León XIV accepted Rafael Zornoza’s already-submitted resignation and appointed Seville auxiliary Ramón Darío Valdivia as apostolic administrator for Cádiz and Ceuta.
- The Vatican opened a canonical investigation after a July complaint was deemed verosímil, with proceedings handled through the Rota tribunal in Madrid under the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
- A former seminarian alleged in a letter reported by El País that Zornoza repeatedly abused him from age 14 to 21 while leading the Getafe seminary in the 1990s.
- Zornoza rejects the accusations, has suspended his public agenda, and is undergoing treatment for an aggressive cancer, according to the Cádiz diocese.
- Reporters describe this as the first publicly known case under León XIV involving a sitting Spanish bishop set aside during an abuse inquiry, as civil prosecution is seen unlikely due to prescription.