DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[Summary: Investigation of Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst is nearing completion and should be completed this week. According to information received by Spiegel, the five-member ecclesiastical commission of inquiry seems to have succeeded in documenting information that could lead to a prosecutor’s investigation. The church investigators first located forensic clues in the secret records which were stored in specially rented rooms, a kind of safe house in Limburg. Some previously unknown finance papers carry the episcopal signature and the investigators found the construction costs of the bishop’s new house were most costly than estimated. It was previously estimated that the cost of the bishop’s new house was 31 million euros but the actual costs are much higher. The entire report of the commission will go to the German bishops conference and to Rome and only then will a decision be made on fate of the bishop….