NEW JERSEY
The Record

SATURDAY MARCH 8, 2014
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

The $500,000 expansion of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers’ already substantial rural retirement house has drawn the attention of Catholics across the region as much for its lavish details as for its timing, as Myers asks parishioners to contribute to his annual appeal and to a $100 million capital fundraising drive.

Almost no notice has been paid to the living quarters of the Most Rev. Bernard Hebda, whom Pope Francis named last year as Myers’ prime assistant and likely successor in what many Catholic Church observers say was the new pope’s most significant early appointment. Hebda was seen as a prelate who personified the pope’s desire for a humbler clergy that shuns the ostentation that has sometimes marked the church hierarchy.

Hebda lives in a dormitory room on the campus of…