26 October 2013, The Tablet

Bathtime for bishops


 
REPORTS THAT the Bishop of Limburg has spent €15,000 (£12,700) on a new bathtub are understood to have led other church leaders to review the cost and style of their bathroom fittings and furniture. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna has just disclosed that he inherited the bathtub from his “pre-pre-predecessor” who had something of a colourful history. It goes back to the days of Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna from 1932 to 1955, who was famed for signing a declaration endorsing Hitler’s invasion of Austria with the words “Heil Hitler”. He later became an open critic of the Nazi regime and gave a fiery sermon insisting that only Christ and not Hitler was “our führer”. A gang of Hitler Youth thereupon stor
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