By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope&nbsp;Francis on Saturday dismissed&nbsp;Bishop&nbsp;Joseph E.&nbsp;Strickland&nbsp;of Tyler, Texas, one of his fiercest critics among U.S. Roman Catholic&nbsp;conservatives, after he refused to step down following a Vatican investigation.
It is&nbsp;very&nbsp;rare&nbsp;for a&nbsp;bishop&nbsp;to be relieved of his duties outright.&nbsp;Usually&nbsp;bishops in trouble with the Vatican are asked to resign before submitting a resignation, which the&nbsp;pope&nbsp;accepts.
Popes make such&nbsp;moves, considered drastic, when a&nbsp;bishop&nbsp;refuses a request to resign.&nbsp;Strickland&nbsp;is 65, 10 years shy of the&nbsp;usual retirement age for&nbsp;bishops.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston said in a statement that&nbsp;Strickland&nbsp;was asked to resign on Nov. 9 but refused.
Strickland, a prolific&nbsp;user of social media who was named to the diocese by the late&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;Benedict in 2012, tweeted earlier this year that he rejected&nbsp;Pope&nbsp;Francis' "program undermining the Deposit of Faith".
He has been particularly critical of the&nbsp;pope's attempt to make the Church more welcoming to the LGBT community and attempts by Francis to give lay people more responsibility in the Church and opposed a recent synod.
The Vatican statement on Saturday announcing the dismissal gave no reason.
Strickland&nbsp;indicated in an interview with the ultra-conservative&nbsp;website LifeSiteNews that one reason was his refusal to implement Vatican directives to restrict the&nbsp;use of the old-style Latin Mass favoured by some&nbsp;conservatives.
"I stand by all the things that were listed as complaints against me ... I'd do it the same way again. I feel&nbsp;very&nbsp;much at peace in the Lord and the truth that he died for.&rdquo;&nbsp;Strickland&nbsp;said.
The dismissal followed a Vatican investigation earlier this year into the administration of the Tyler diocese, which Catholic media reports said included a review of his handling of financial affairs. DiNardo said the investigation concluded that&nbsp;Strickland's continuation in office "was not feasible".
Strickland&nbsp;had become one of the most vocal standard bearers of the ultra-conservative&nbsp;wing of the U.S. Church and has a national following far beyond the small diocese of Tyler in eastern Texas.
Last August, the&nbsp;pope&nbsp;lamented what he called a "reactionary" Catholic Church in the United States, where he said political ideology had replaced faith in some cases.
Strickland&nbsp;is a strong supporter of former U.S. president Donald Trump and is seen as a hero by&nbsp;conservative&nbsp;U.S. Catholic media outlets that are aligned with Trump.
Last year, when the Vatican defrocked ultra-conservative&nbsp;U.S. anti-abortion priest Frank Pavone for "blasphemous" social media posts and disobedience to&nbsp;bishops,&nbsp;Strickland&nbsp;was one of the few American&nbsp;bishops to defend him publicly.
"The blasphemy is that this holy priest is cancelled while an evil president promotes the denial of truth and the murder of the unborn at every&nbsp;turn, Vatican officials promote immorality and denial of the deposit of faith and priests promote gender confusion devastating lives...evil,"&nbsp;Strickland&nbsp;wrote on the platform then known as Twitter.
The Vatican said Francis named the&nbsp;bishop&nbsp;of Austin, Texas, Joe Vasquez, as the interim administrator of the Tyler diocese.
(Reporting by Phil Pullella, Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Christina Fincher)

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In very rare move, Pope dismisses conservative US bishop Strickland