VATICAN CITY — A leading German bishop who has acknowledged slapping children and is being investigated for sexual abuse of minors and financial misconduct lost his job Saturday as Pope Benedict XVI continued cleaning house.

The German-born pontiff formally accepted the resignation offer made April 21 by Bishop Walter Mixa, an outspoken conservative voice in the German church and a military chaplain for Germany, as well as head of the Augsburg diocese.

The terse Vatican announcement cited no reason for accepting the resignation but simply said the decision was in line with canon law provisions for bishops no longer fit for service.

Mixa had offered to step down amid persistent allegations that he hit children while a priest decades ago and of financial irregularities at a children's home he was responsible for. The pressure on him increased Friday, when the Augsburg diocese said, without giving details that it had given prosecutors information in line with German church guidelines for handling sex abuse cases.