A Peruvian bishop submitted his resignation to Pope Leo after a Vatican investigation revealed that he was secretly dating multiple women simultaneously.

51-year-old Ciro Quispe Lopez, the bishop of Juli, in Peru, stands accused of having up to 17 secret lovers. Although he denies the allegations against him as part of a defamation campaign by ‘dark hands’, Lopez handed in his resignation to the Pope last month, more than two decades earlier than Catholic bishops usually retire. The Vatican investigation began after an investigation by Kevin Moncada, a journalist for the Peruvian newspaper Sin Fronteras, found that Ciro Quispe Lopez had been exchanging explicit messages, photos and videos with various women. On top of that, he accidentally sent pictures and videos intended for his mistresses to his house cleaner, who alerted the Catholic Church.