The Vatican has placed Texas Bishop, Joseph Strickland, under investigation after leading the Prayer March against the LA Dodgers last week

The Vatican has placed Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland under investigation after leading the Prayer March against the LA Dodgers last week.

The Vatican’s Dicastery of Bishops has completed a formal investigation of Bishop Joseph E. Strickland and the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, according to multiple media reports and confirmed by EWTN News.

The inquiry, known as an apostolic visitation, marks a rare though not unprecedented intervention by Rome into a U.S. diocese and points to possible disciplinary action against Strickland, a widely popular though polarizing Texas firebrand viewed as a culture war champion by many U.S. conservatives for his staunch defense of the unborn, marriage, the traditional Latin liturgy, and Catholic orthodoxy.

The leader of the eastern Texas diocese since 2012, Strickland, 64, has faced criticism for what some see as intemperate social media posts unbecoming of a prominent U.S. prelate, including a May 12 tweet that suggested Pope Francis was “undermining the Deposit of Faith.”

Not one to sit on the sidelines, he recently played a prominent role in a eucharistic procession and prayer rally in Los Angeles on June 16 organized to protest Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers for honoring an anti-Catholic drag group at the team’s annual Pride Night game.