Roman Catholic Bishops Better Watch their Backs & Scale Back

By Pat Summers
NewJerseyNewsroom
February 15, 2014

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/nation/roman-catholic-bishops-better-watch-their-backs-a-scale-back

Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church fall below cardinals - the so-called “princes of the church” - in the hierarchy, but that doesn’t stop some of them, and their enablers, from aspiring.

The latest case deals with the bishop of the Camden New Jersey diocese (encompassing six southern NJ counties) whose new home cost $500,000, aka a half-million dollars. An  AP report in myfoxdetroit.com indicates the 1908 mansion in Woodbury has an in-ground pool, three fireplaces, a library and a five-car garage.

A church spokesperson indicated last month that Bishop Dennis J. Sullivan needs such facilities to meet with donors, benefactors and use as workspace. Sale of the property, owned by Rowan University as a president’s home, was finalized late last year.

Until his move to Woodbury, Bishop Sullivan – formerly “a top administrator in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York” – lived in an apartment at the St. Pius X Retreat House, Blackwood, where other bishops have lived. That building will be sold.

A Bronx native 67 years old, Bishop Sullivan has been a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on child protection, which oversees the church’s efforts to respond to the issue of sexual abuse by clergymen, according to the NYTimes.com. His appointment to the Camden diocese post in January 2013 drew criticism from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a group that advocates for abuse victims.

In 2011, a second New Jersey bishop -- David M. O'Connell, who heads up the Trenton diocese -- opted not to live in Trenton, but to move instead to a home described as "austere" on a  wooded road in Lawrence Township, which happens to have a Princeton mailing address.

The home reportedly has four bedrooms, 3½ baths, a family room, dining room, eat-in kitchen and a vaulted LR, all on 5.8 acres, newjerseynewsroom.com reported. It went for $550,000, reportedly in cash. (The Mercer diocese includes the counties of Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean.)  

Bishop O'Connell's predecessors had lived in a large, three story brown brick building on a corner in Trenton for 87 years. Criticism of his move came from residents of that neighborhood as well as others in the diocese. Citing the claimed “new austerity” of his move, one woman suggested he open a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter on his expansive acreage.  

Which leads to Germany, where another bishop’s multi-million dollar renovations to his residence drew media ridicule and scorn. Last October, Pope Francis suspended him.  

As reported in the NYTimes.com, the expenditures of Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, 53, of Limburg, ballooned to more than $41 million. Luxuries like a $20,000 bathtub, a $1.1 million landscaped garden and plans for an 800-square-foot fitness room were among the bishop’s extravagances.    

Pope Francis’s suspension action ran counter to at least one earlier situation, when John Paul II (before Benedict) was pope. No discernable public action was taken in 2002, when Bishop William Murphy, of Rockville Centre, NY, displaced six nuns so a luxurious residential suite could be built for him.

As the world must know by now, Pope Francis (aka “the bishop of Rome”) lives in spartan style in the Vatican, where his predecessors had opulent apartments. He has reportedly said that bishops should not live “like princes.”