The Root Of All Evil

After many years of Catholic schooling, in the last decade I have found myself pulling further and further away from the Catholic Church. It is not that I was having a crisis of faith - more like they were having a crisis of leadership. This simple fact of the matter is that I wasn't particularly enamored with the direction the Church was headed in and the people they had picked to guide it. Increasingly I found myself at odds with them politically and fundamentally, whether it was the insistence on inserting themselves into every political debate despite the belief that Church and State are supposed to be separate or fact the Church doesn't pay any taxes which in my mind means they shouldn't be trying to guide policy. Also, the way they have clung to the past regarding same-sex marriage and female priests is not in line with my personal beliefs. But the main thing I was struggling with is the constant begging for cash. In my local church they would often take two collections and make damn sure you knew when they were coming. Ironically, this put them at odds with the very school they are connected to, who taught me early on that it's the faith which matters, not the size of the donation. However, like a lot of people who had drifted away from the Church I am very encouraged by the steps being taken by Pope Francis. I really like the messages he has been sending out but more than that I like the actions he has been taking, specifically regarding how the Church handles it money.

On Wednesday the Pope suspended German Bishop Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst, better known as the "Bishop of Bling." This moniker was well-earned, as Bishop Tebartz-Van Elst had spent $55 million dollars renovating his personal residence. The Bishop had contended the high price tag was attributable to the fact that they were attempting to preserve several historical buildings attached to his residence and that when you divided it among all those buildings the price made sense. However, that claims gets a little harder to believe when you learn that among the upgrades were a $20,000 bathtub and a heated roof for his personal chapel. (Somehow I doubt those were demanded by the preservation society.) Also, this comes on the heels of a scandal last year in which the Bishop reportedly used Church funds for first-class tickets to India. Considering the Pope lives in a tiny apartment, drives an old car and one of the first things his did was washing the feet of the poor, I can not imagine he is too pleased to hear about all this. Sadly, I doubt this Bishop is the only one who has been using Church funds to pay for their extravagant lifestyle, but hopefully Pope Francis is just getting started as he drags the Catholicism kicking and screaming into the new century. Ironically, throwing some of these people out of the Church would actually bring more people into it.