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	Cullen's Assets Leave the Flock Aflutter By Daniel Patrick Sheehan Morning Call September 14, 2008 http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5cullen.6584721sep14,0,3196303.story Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen's house in Avalon and his condominium in Stone Harbor are modest by New Jersey Shore standards. They aren't on the New Jersey waterfront. Both are surrounded by far more imposing, even breathtaking, properties. But by virtue of their locations, the Catholic prelate's holdings are worth close to $2 million. The bishop's ownership of the properties, disclosed last month in a letter to the editor in The Morning Call, provoked passionate reaction among members of his flock, many of whom are still smarting from this summer's closure of 47 churches across the five-county diocese. The gist of the argument: Why are churches closing if the bishop is rich? "They're outraged," said Stephen Antalics of Bethlehem, characterizing the many callers and e-mailers who have responded to his letter. Antalics' letter sparked a debate among Catholics on The Morning Call's Web site, where more than 600 messages were posted in response. One dismayed couple sent a letter to the editor recounting their budget-straining efforts to contribute to the church and send their children to Catholic school while maintaining their aging house. "Maybe," they concluded, "we can ask the bishop for a loan for the $10,000 we need for our roof." The diocese contends that Cullen's private wealth is not an issue. Nothing in church law forbids bishops from having money and owning property. As a diocesan priest, charged with ministering to a particular geographic area, Cullen did not take a vow of poverty, as priests of religious orders such as the Dominicans or Franciscans do. Allentown's first bishop, Joseph M. McShea, left an estate of nearly $1.2 million when he died in 1991, all of it in personal property that he bequeathed to the diocese. In the preface to his will, McShea noted that most of the amount was acquired through testimonial purses and gifts on his 25th anniversary as a bishop and his 50th anniversary as a priest. Those gifts were "enhanced by prudent investment," the will says. Linking Cullen's wealth to the church closings is especially misleading, the diocese contends. That process, which reduced the diocese from 151 parishes to 104, was driven more by a shortage of priests and shifting Catholic populations than by fiscal distress, though financial considerations were part of the equation. The majority of closings were in Carbon and Schuylkill counties, with a few in Lehigh and Northampton counties and an undetermined number possible for Berks County. Cullen's defenders have taken Antalics to task. In a letter to the editor, John Ryan Krajczar of Bethlehem said it was ludicrous for anyone to "snoop" in the bishop's property and tax records. "Bishop Cullen is not a government official or a CEO of a corporation. He is the representative of Jesus Christ to the flock entrusted to his care." And the diocese's Council of Priests was incensed enough by Antalics' letter to pass a resolution at its quarterly meeting Monday, spokesman Matt Kerr said. "We resent any attempt to question our bishop's integrity and knowledge," the resolution said. Cullen's holdings Cullen bought his Avalon property from relatives in 1988 for $229,000 (it is worth about six times that amount today) and uses it as a vacation home. The taxes are about $4,800 a year, according to records in Cape May Courthouse, N.J. He bought the Stone Harbor property, a second-floor condo, for $615,000 as an investment two years ago with money he inherited upon the death of a friend, according to the diocese. The annual tax bill is about $2,000. A Lower Macungie property on Larkspur Drive -- a brick ranch house purchased two years ago by the diocese for $390,000 -- will serve as a retirement home for the bishop and his successors. Cullen is having the property renovated using a financial gift given to him personally, Kerr said. Cullen's predecessor, Bishop Thomas Welsh, will remain in the Holy Family Villa retirement home in Bethlehem, Kerr added. The Larkspur Drive house and many other diocese-owned properties are in the bishop's name because he is head of the diocese, but by canon and state law, they must be transferred to his successor. Cullen reached the church's mandatory retirement age of 75 in March, but many clergy work past that age if the Vatican deems it necessary. Cullen's current residence, 2920 Chew St. in Allentown's affluent West End, was bequeathed to the diocese by McShea and has been the residence of every bishop since. Antalics, a disaffected parishioner of the closed St. Joseph's Church in south Bethlehem, said the issue isn't property -- "There's nothing wrong with him owning property," he said -- but financial "transparency." He equated the bishop to the chief executive officer of the Allentown Diocese "corporation" in which lay people are stakeholders. But he said his written inquiries with the diocese about Cullen's salary and accounting of money from closed churches have been unsuccessful, with church officials either not responding or declaring information off-limits. Antalics said such unresponsiveness creates confusion and a sense that the diocese is dismissive of legitimate interest in church finances by parishioners who contribute every Sunday. In his letter, he suggested calling the Bishop's Annual Appeal, an important charity drive, the "Bishop's Annual Real Estate Fund." "Why can't we find out what the bishop makes?" he said. The diocese took exception to Antalics' gibe about the annual appeal. None of the homes was purchased with appeal funds, Kerr wrote in an e-mail, adding: "The funds raised for the appeal are allocated exclusively to health and human services including Catholic Charities, ministries in Catholic life and evangelization, education of seminarians, scholarships and some limited administrative costs associated with running the appeal. The budget and allocations for the appeal are reviewed by the Diocesan Finance Council, made up of lay people." In fact, all diocesan spending is audited each year and a report is submitted to the same council. The results, however, are not made public. Nor are the salaries of the bishop or other clergy. Affluence and Christianity Ken Briggs of Easton, an author and longtime observer of the Catholic Church who served as religion editor of The New York Times and now teaches at Lafayette College, said the debate over Cullen's property boils down to perception -- or, perhaps, misperception. "The perception is that he has taken the vow [of poverty]," Briggs said. "People have a tough time picking up the distinction between order priests and diocesan priests and that can come as a shock." Cullen is hardly the first bishop to spark controversy over property. His old boss in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, stirred the ire of the faithful by spending $5 million renovating his Main Line residence while closing or merging parishes and schools, and never making the expenditures public. Bevilacqua also had been criticized in his previous post, Pittsburgh, for fiscal mismanagement. In the National Catholic Reporter, a retired priest charged with righting Pittsburgh's financial ship after Bevilacqua's tenure called the bishop "a big spender and a secret spender." The difference in Allentown is that Cullen, at least where the shore properties are concerned, has spent his own money, not diocesan funds. And the money spent on the retirement property in Lower Macungie will benefit all bishops, not just Cullen. Still, the debate raises hard questions about the place of wealth in Christianity, Briggs said. "How to be a Christian in a world of affluence is a disturbing question and it lies low as an unspoken thing," he said, adding that Christ's explicit commands to give up worldly things are hard to reconcile with the fundamental nature of American economics. "It ties in with American Christian desire to grasp and hold tight the capitalist bundle, even though it brings the type of reward system that has trouble with the New Testament," Briggs said. "American Christianity has become an adjunct to the American success ethic."
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