GERMANY
BBC News
Dubbed the “bishop of bling” by German media, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has been suspended by the Vatican over claims of excessive spending.
The Bishop of Limburg was ordered to leave his diocese for an “appropriate period” after a meeting with the Pope following a scandal about the spiralling costs of a multi-million-dollar renovation of his official residence.
He is accused of spending 31m euros (£26m; $42m) on the development, which was originally costed at 5.5m euros.
The bishop – and his alleged spending habits – has become infamous in Germany, where many people pay tax to the Catholic Church. …
Bishop Tebartz-van Elst was born in the village of Twisteden in north-west Germany in 1959.
He has described himself as being a loner as a child, preferring to read rather than help on his family’s farm, according to the German newspaper Der Zeit.
He was ordained as a priest in 1985 and named auxiliary bishop of Munster in 2003 by Pope John Paul II.
In an article for Deutsche Welle, German Catholic theologian David Berger says Bishop Tebartz-van Elst was a “professor of liberal ideas” while in Munster.
But this changed under Pope Benedict, he says, and he came to believe in the dominant authority of bishops.
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