"Bling Bishop" of Limburg Given Vatican Audience after Pope Preaches on Greed

By Philip Oltermann
The Guardian
October 21, 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/21/bling-bishop-limburg-meets-pope-sermon-greed

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, bishop of Limburg, in the inner courtyard of the palace, which has cost 10 times the original estimate. Photograph: Boris Rossler/EPA

The scandal-hit "luxury bishop" of Limburg met the pope in Rome today. The question of the bishop's possible resignation remained unresolved as the Vatican confirmed that a 20-minute meeting between Pope Francis and Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst had taken place at midday, but gave no further information. Tebartz-van Elst arrived in Rome last Sunday on a Ryanair flight, but had been kept waiting for a week to meet the pontiff.

Pointedly, Pope Francis had earlier in the day given a sermon in which he castigated greed: "Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one's life does not consist of possessions," he said in the chapel of Santa Marta. The bishop of Limburg has been in the German media spotlight for allegedly spending lavish amounts of church funds on a new residence.

Before meeting Tebartz-van Elst, Pope Francis met a number of German clerics who know the bishop. Last Thursday, he received Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops' conference, who had been very outspoken in his criticism. Before the meeting today, the pope also saw one of Tebartz-van Elst's allies, the Cologne archbishop, Cardinal Joachim Meisner.

More figures from the German Catholic church have distanced themselves from Tebartz-van Elst over recent days. On Sunday, a representative of the Catholic church in Bavaria described the bishop resuming his work in Limburg as "rather unlikely". The dean of the church in Limburg told Spiegel Online that "trust in the bishop is gone, and I don't see how trust can be rebuilt again". There have been demonstrations outside the church for several days.

The revelations about the Limburg bishop's palace – which is predicted to cost ˆ31m (?26m), or 10 times the original estimate – have triggered a wider debate over the transparency of church spending, described by Die Welt newspaper as "a Catholic glasnost". In Germany, the church has organised its finances independently of the state since the Weimar Republic. Germans who are registered Catholics can only remain part of the church if they pay a religious tax on top of their income tax.