GERMANY
National Catholic Reporter
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Sep. 19, 2013
A German bishop who was criticized by his priests and laity for an extravagant lifestyle and authoritarian leadership has apologized for “misjudgments” and agreed to an outside audit of his diocese’s financial records.
Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg issued the apology at the end of a weeklong Vatican-ordered “brotherly visitation” by Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, a veteran Vatican diplomat and the Holy See’s nuncio to Germany for eight years in 1990s.
On Sept. 16, Tebartz-van Elst released a declaration signed by himself, Lajolo and Fr. Günther Geis, the cathedral rector, that calls on the German bishops’ conference to appoint a commission to audit diocesan finances with special attention on the money spent redecorating the bishop’s palace in Limburg. “The final report of the commission, which will examine and include all costs, finances and procedures involved, will be disclosed publicly,” the declaration says.
It is highly unusual for a bishops’ conference to audit the finances of an individual bishop in this way. Canon law has no provisions for such oversight. The power of supervision over individual bishops is reserved for the pope.
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