UNITED STATES
Canonical Consultation
07/27/2015
Jennifer Haselberger
The National Catholic Reporter has an interesting article this week on the efforts of the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Limburg, appointed after the resignation of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (a.k.a. the ‘Bishop of Bling’), to hold the former bishop responsible for 3.9 million Euro in losses incurred by the diocese during his administration. According to the NCR, the Apostolic Administrator, Bishop Manfred Grothe, began, upon assuming temporary governance of the See, a ‘thorough investigation’ of the scandal that led to Tebartz-van Elst’s resignation, and in the process discovered ‘outright losses that had to be written off’ and which were directly attributable to decisions taken by the former bishop. The NCR reports that Tebartz-van Elst incurred the approximately $4.9 million in losses ‘by demanding late and costly changes, requiring earlier work to be scrapped, and ordering design studies that were not used’. As a result, the Diocese of Limburg acknowledged in a July 23rd statement to the NCR that the Apostolic Administrator has ‘raised canon law questions and the issue of material compensation in talks at the Vatican several times, the last being in April 2015. There will be another meeting on this topic in the autumn…The decision about whether payment demands can be made of the bishop emeritus, including how much and how, can only be made in cooperation with the Vatican. In principle, the Holy See is responsible in cases of legal action against a bishop.’ The article notes that the Diocese of Limburg is also seeking to lesson its pension obligations to its former bishop.
Hallelujah.
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