CNN: De amerikanske ærkebiskoppers overdådige boliger
4. aug. 2014
Daniel Burke, CNN skriver bl.a.:
10 af landets øverste kirkeledere går imod pavens eksempel og bor i boliger til en værdi af mere end $ 1 million.
"Jeg ønkser en kirke, som er fattig og for de fattige!"
- Pave Francis
Clearly, "lifestyles of the rich and religious" doesn't cut it for Pope Francis.
The pontiff has said it "breaks my heart" to see priests and nuns driving the latest-model cars.
He's blasted "airport bishops" who spend more time jet-setting than tending to their flocks.
And he's warned against church leaders who bear the "psychology of princes."
The Vatican fired one such "prince" last year: German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst -- aka "The Bishop of Bling" -- who spent $43 million to remodel his opulent pad.
(Bronze window frames? $2.4 million. Getting on the wrong side of the Pope? Far more pricey.)
"God save us from a worldly Church with superficial spiritual and pastoral trappings!" Francis said in his book-length blueprint for the church.
Say what you will, but this Pope puts his preaching into practice.
The message seems clear, no?
But are American archbishops following Francis' lead?
A CNN investigation found that at least 10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million, according to church and government records.*
That's not counting hundreds of retired and active Catholic bishops in smaller cities, some of whom live equally large.
Among archbishops, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York leads the pack with this 15,000-square-foot mansion on Madison Avenue, in one of the priciest corridors of Manhattan.
Vanderbilt Appraisal Company, a New York firm hired by CNN to estimate the building's value, said it's worth at least $30 million. Dolan shares the neo-Gothic mansion, which is reportedly filled with thick red carpets and priceless antiques, with three other priests.
- - - -
After getting an earful from angry Catholics, Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory agreed to give up his $2.2 million mansion.
Gregory apologized for building the mansion, calling it a lapse in judgment and out of step with his boss, the Pope.
"What we didn't stop to consider," Gregory said, "was that the world and the church have changed."
Hele artiklen med foto er <her>