Merkel & Obama Should Get Bling Bishops to Help

By Jerry Slevin
Christian Catholicism
February 9, 2015

http://christiancatholicism.com/merkel-obama-should-get-bling-bishops-to-help-save-greece/

A Greek finance official reportedly said on Monday (2/9/15) that he did not believe German Chancellor Angela Merkel would let Greece go bankrupt. “I think what counts is what Greece will put on the table,” Merkel said at a news conference in Washington where she is meeting with US President Obama on the Greek debt and other crises.

Part of the solution for the Greek debt crisis may be for Merkel and Obama to show some fortitude and shift some of the excessive subsidies that both their countries pay to support obscene “bling bishops” in Germany and the USA. German government direct subsidies to Catholic bishops exceed $6 billion a year and US indirect subsides (contribution tax deductions, tax exemptions, etc.) are likely even much higher.

In addition, both countries face escalating governmental social welfare expenditures related to tens of thousands of survivors of priest sexual abuse that the Catholic Church has virtually abandoned. German and USA national leaders have been far behind others, like Australian, Irish and recently the UK leaders in seeking to hold unaccountable Catholic bishops’ feet to the fire. Please see “Peter Saunders & Marie Collins Should Quit Pope’s Abuse Commission, No?“, here, [Christian Catholicism]

Interestingly, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the so-called most famous “Bishop of Bling”, who was removed from his German diocese because of his lavish spending on his bishop’s palace, has reportedly now been appointed to an important new position at the Vatican. How does that fit into Pope Francis’ much hyped Christmas scolding of his Vatican staff?

Bishop Tebartz-van Elst made world headlines two years ago when details of a ˆ30 million renovation project for his bishop’s palace were uncovered. Among the items of lavish expenditure it revealed were works of art, chapel windows, built-in cupboards and also a two-seater bathtub costing approximately ˆ20,000. It is unclear who the second seat is for. Of course, this pales compared to the almost $ 200 million each reportedly spent by NY’s Cardinal Dolan and LA’s Cardinal Mahony to satisfy their excessive “edifice complexes”.

In addition to the German allegations against Tebartz van Elst, there are the reports that Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s Munich archdiocese has spent $150 million on a new diocesan service center. Marx, who is president of the German bishops’ conference, has also reportedly had his residence renovated at a cost of $9 million, paid for by the state of Bavaria.

Francis, who preaches a lot about helping the poor and smelling like the sheep, should publicly chastise Marx, who is meeting with him this week as a member of the “C-9? group of elite Cardinals.

The Vatican press office, predictably, had reportedly refused to comment on the the Bling Bishop’s Vatican appointment when asked about it last week, neither confirming nor denying it had taken place. Reportedly Archbishop Georg Ganswein, the ex-Pope’s “convent mate”, also predictably, unofficially confirmed the news on Feb. 7. Why does Francis continue to tolerate having George as an aide?

Also interestingly, the Vatican’s subsidy strategy is different in each of these two countries. To maximize the German subsidy, the local bishops must get the Vatican to liberalize the rules barring divorced and remarried Catholics from receiving communion. Too many divorced Germans are opting out of the subsidy and taking their families with them, it appears. This reduces the German subsidy payments to local bishops.

In the USA, where local bishops generate substantial voluntary contributions from Catholic billionaires who seek lower effective tax rates, US bishops must focus on opposing gay marriage since that effort brings out some fundamentalist voters who help elect low tax Republicans to the US Congress.

So US culture warriors like Archbishops Cordileone and Chaput and Cardinal Burke oppose liberalizing Catholic marriage rules for the divorced since it confuses and/or discourages, it appears, anti gay US voters.

The likely result will be that Pope Francis will stall on liberalizing the rules on divorced Catholics until after the November 2016 USA presidential and congressional elections. Since the gay marriage issue will likely become mostly moot in the USA after the 2016 elections, the Vatican can then liberalize the rules on divorced and remarried Catholics to help maximize the German subsidy.