Limburg bishop ‘authorised’ to stay away from his diocese

THE BISHOP at the centre of a spiralling scandal in Germany about his lavish lifestyle has been told by the Vatican it is impossible for him to return to his diocese in the present climate, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, who reportedly spent €31 million (£26m) on renovations to his palace, including €15,000 on a bathtub, met Pope Francis on Monday. Shortly after Bishop Tebartz’s audience, a spokesman for the Limburg Diocese, said the bishop was “grateful for the most encouraging encounter”. However, on Wednesday, a Holy See statement “authorised his absence” from his diocese.

“The Holy See feels it is opportune to authorise for Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst [of Limburg] a period outside the diocese,” said the communiqué. It said it took the decision while awaiting the findings of a commission set up by the German bishops’ conference to investigate the controversy.

Pope Francis discussed the Limburg crisis with the president of the German bishops’ conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, on 17 October. Afterwards, Archbishop Zollitsch announced that the special commission appointed by the Pope’s representative, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, in mid-September, to audit the Limburg Diocese’s financial transactions, would be taking up its work in Limburg the next day, 18 October.

The crisis presents a dilemma for Pope Francis, because it pits his prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), who supports Bishop Tebartz and blames the media for the crisis, on one side against most of the German bishops on the other. Moreover, the Bishop of Limburg’s lavish spending stands in sharp contrast to Pope Francis’ call for a “poor Church for the poor”.

Immediately after the special commission was announced in September, the CDF prefect Archbishop Gerhard Müller declared that bishops’ conferences had “no controlling competences whatsoever” in any diocese or concerning any bishop.

Thousands of German Catholics have left the Church by opting out of paying church tax in response to Bishop Tebartz’s reported extravagance. The Archbishop of Berlin, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, insisted that “the whole Catholic Church in Germany has been immensely damaged”, adding that it would be very difficult for the Church to regain people’s trust.

The Holy See statement said Fr Wolfgang Rö¨sch, a priest whom Bishop Tebartz-van Elst had already appointed to become his vicar general in January, would assume that office immediately and “will administer” the diocese “during the absence of the diocesan bishop”.