NY Times; A Church So Poor It Has to Close Schools, Yet So Rich It Can Build a Palace

[edhopper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/nyregion/a-church-so-poor-it-has-to-close-schools-yet-so-rich-it-can-build-a-palace.html?ref=nyregion

"Mater Dei Academy sits shuttered, blue drapes pulled across its windows, atop a hill in this working-class city. From its steps, you can peer across the mist-shrouded expanse of the Meadowlands to the distant spires of Manhattan.

John J. Myers, the archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese, comes to this vacation home on many weekends. The 4,500-square-foot home has a handsome amoeba-shaped swimming pool out back. And as he’s 72, and retirement beckons in two years, he has renovations in mind. A small army of workers are framing a 3,000-square-foot addition.

This new wing will have an indoor exercise pool, three fireplaces and an elevator. The Star-Ledger of Newark has noted that the half-million-dollar tab for this wing does not include architects’ fees or furnishings."

Keep those donation plates full, it's all going to "good works"

[hrmjustin]

1. My guess he will get a call from the Vatican and retire a bit early.

[Goblinmonger]

6. Or get promoted.

Are we pretending that the Vatican isn't sitting on billions of dollars of art work while the Pope "fights for the poor"?

[hrmjustin]

7. The pope removed the bishop in Germany that had a 40 million dollar house built.

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. Do you understand what you're talking about?

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst was not suspended for having an expensive house. He was suspended because he is a public relations nightmare.

He perjured himself in court; under the guise of "austerity", he fired lay employees, and cut the pay and benefits of those who remained; and he diverted charity money to the remodeling of his very expensive estate. By the time Frankie inserted himself into the situation, the German press had been flogging van Elst for months, and German dioceses began reporting "significant increases in the number of leaving the church."

[hrmjustin]

15. No I guess I don't know!

[No Vested Interest]

8. The old "sell the art works, feed the poor" argument.

Last edited Thu Feb 20, 2014, 01:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Not as though it hasn't been refuted again and again.
Please continue, sir.

[Goblinmonger]

9. "again and again"

Do tell

[FiveGoodMen]

10. That should make it easy to refute again

Have at it.

[No Vested Interest]

12. No intention of going over the obvious.

Some need to educate themselves before coming on boards only to grind their old axes.
Their lack of knowledge is not my concern, is annoying to those who come to be informed.

As for me, I'm on vacation & going to enjoy a meal out

[Sanity Claws]

2. I wonder how the Pope feels about this.

He suspended a German bishop for making a luxury residence and turned the residence into a soup kitchen. http://www.christianpost.com/news/bishop-of-blings-42-million-german-residence-to-be-turned-into-soup-kitchen-108115/

I would love it if the pope did that here.

[CrispyQ]

3. A nicely written article. Loved the end.

What an arrogant ass this Myers is. I hope he hears from the Pope.

[rug]

5. It is. It's worth repeating.

Some months back, I attended a Mass celebrated for the Rev. John Grange. He was a plain-spoken worker priest, a man who walked with striking workers, picketed a slumlord and faced down a Bronx political boss.

When he died in October, he was laid out in a simple coffin in his beloved St. Jerome Church in the South Bronx, and every pew overflowed with Latino working men and women, their children and crying babies.

I watched those parishioners weep. And when the time came, I watched them pull out folded dollars and fill the offering plates.

That was grace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/nyregion/rev-john-grange-who-welcomed-bronxs-latinos-dies-at-73.html

[cbayer]

4. The pope should make an example out of this guy.

If the information in this article is accurate, he is despicable.

[okasha]

11. Apparently he didn't learn from the example

of his colleague in Germany.

[cbayer]

13. He sounds exceedingly greedy, which are the worst kinds of blinders.

I'm glad to see him getting this kind of attention and hope there is a backlash.