GERMANY
Los Angeles Times
By Carol J. Williams
October 23, 2013
When Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Germany traveled to India last year to minister to poor slum dwellers, he reportedly flew first class.
This year, renovations of the Roman Catholic bishop’s church-owned residence in the city of Limburg ran massively over budget to cover $620,000 worth of artwork, $1.1 million in landscaping and last-minute design revisions — $42 million in all, billed to the Vatican and German taxpayers, Hamburg’s tabloid daily Bild reported.
Dubbed the “Bishop of Bling” by European media that have been avidly tracking the bespectacled clergyman’s lavish lifestyle, Tebartz-van Elst was suspended from his post by Pope Francis on Wednesday in a clear sign that the new pontiff is serious about diverting resources from the “princes of the church” to the paupers in its congregations.
Tebartz-van Elst flew to Rome this month — on budget carrier easyJet, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported — to explain his finances to the pope after a Vatican delegation was dispatched last month to investigate what had become an embarrassing scandal for the church.
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