Bishop Reginald Cawcutt has resigned as Cape Town's auxiliary bishop after reports that he had been implicated in a gay website scandal.
According to a brief report from the Vatican, Pope John Paul II accepted Cawcutt's resignation but gave no details of the case.
According to an Associated Press report the site was started by a priest in Maine as a discussion group for gay clergymen. It carried sexually explicit material.
The report said the diocese of Portland, Maine, disciplined the priest two years ago, removing him from his parish.
In an article in the Cape Argus in June, Cawcutt said he was a target of conservative Catholic groups in the United States.
He said he was involved with the site as a result of his ministry to gays and Aids victims and that he consistently promoted celibacy in the group.
Cawcutt was not available for comment on Wednesday.
However, the editor of the Catholic newspaper The Southern Cross said Cawcutt had prepared an official statement to the archdiocese of Cape Town in which he (Cawcutt) pointed out that he has been a priest for 40 years.
In the official statement Cawcutt said he did not wish to be the cause of any further division in the church, and had resigned his position as Cape Town's auxiliary bishop.
Cawcutt said that after 40 years of what he believed to have been service to the Lord, he would continue serving the Good Lord, with a lower profile.
Cawcutt was chaplain to the deaf school in Cape Town and was also chaplain to the navy.
He was among the first bishops to take an interest in Aids work, at a time when it was not fashionable to do so. He helped set up the Aids office for the SA Catholic Bishops Conference and that office had been responsible for making the Catholic Church one of the biggest care providers for Aids victims.