Herein is the case involving the German Catholic bishop of the diocese of Limburg, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, whose inordinate profligacy has casued an uproar in his diocese, and throughout Germany. The Vatican ordered an investigation by sending a delegation to that diocese regarding the matter. The Vatican took this case seriously for the scandal that it is. The Vatican acted and reacted in the right manner. The Vatican under the papacy of Pope Francis 1, has shown that corruption is an odious fragment in the life and functioning of the Catholic faith. Acting thus, he has expressed powerfully his commitment to transparency in the life of the Church. Yet, he needs to spread his tentacles further, especially to the churches of Africa. In many of these churches corruption by bishops and top-members of the hierarchy is rampant, and due to cowardness have always surfaced as rumours that have been proven over time in some cases. This was the case of the adulterous affairs carried out by Archbishop Pius Ncube in Zimbabwe, at the time when he was riding the high-moral-horse pouring venoms against the dictatorial antics of President Robert Mugabe, himself a Catholic.
In Nigeria, many Bishops are building palatial mansions and estates that blows the mind, and depressing and oppressing the bishop with all kinds of fund raising activities, launchings, and arbitrary use of church funds, that many are very poor stewards and managers. Often some of these activities, like their Nigerian politician peers, are outlets for siphoning money into their private accounts, merely using some of these wild goose and white elephant projects as convenient smokescreens to milk off the hardwork of their many innocent adherents, and on another level which they use to bond with some criminal and corrupt network of Nigerian politicians, occultists, businessmen and women, in a manner that endangers the qualitative autonomy and effective impact of the Christian gospel.
Among such criminals is John Cardinal Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, whose antics and tactics have been cleverly orchestrated using sleek strategies. This man harrass, molest, and rape Nigerian nuns and gullible women for his sexual gratification, and also receives bribes from the corrupt Nigerian government officials and politicians. He is also known to have caused enormous problems in many Nigerian dioceses regarding episcopal selection of candidates for the positions of bishops. Of recent, he has lead reticiently but factually the drive to build a mansion for the Ugandan archbishop who is the incumbent Papal Nuncio to Nigeria, using certain fronts but tasking Nigerian dioceses through their bishops to contribute to such malicious objectives. It is, unfortunate, that the Vatican turned around and appointed such a dirty hag of a Cardinal Archbishop to another troubled hot-spot, when nepotic and corrupt channels was used to impose a bishop on the good faithful of Ahiara diocese. The choice of Archbishop Cardinal Onaiyekan as the Apostolic Administration of Ahiara diocese is ill-advised and equally fraudulent as was the initial appointment and ordination of Bishop Peter Okpaleke to that episcopal see.
It is time that the Vatican initiate a wide-ranging investigation into all the affairs of the Nigerian Catholic Church--without exception. In almost all dioceses, the bishops are as corrupt as hell, and have no decorum when it comes to fragrant flamboyant living and profligacy as it pertains to the public ecclesiastical funds of the church, contributed by their adherents, and funds collected from abroad missionary funding agencies and foundations' grants.
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...Vatican hears about high-spending German bishop
Top German bishop says prosecutors' investigation of high-spending bishop demands action
By Daniela Petroff, Associated Press
Associated Press – 2 hours 9 minutes ago....Email 0Recommend0Tweet0Share0Print.....Related Content.
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View Photo.Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Episcopal Conference, speaks during a press conference at the Vatican, Monday, Oct. 14, 2013. Zollitsch is in Rome this week to brief Pope Francis on the diocese of Limburg, where Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has caused an uproar with the 31-million-euro ($42 million) construction of a new bishop's residence complex and related renovations. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca)
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VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The head of Germany's bishops conference warned Monday that the Catholic Church must act quickly to deal with a bishop under fire for lavish spending now that German prosecutors are involved in the case, a tacit acknowledgment that the church's finances were on the line.
Archbishop Robert Zollitsch is in Rome this week to brief Pope Francis on the situation in the diocese of Limburg, where Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has caused an uproar with the 31-million-euro ($42 million) construction of a new bishop's residence complex and related renovations.
In a country where a church tax provides the Catholic Church with billions in euros in revenue each year, there have long been calls from church reformers for greater transparency in church finances. Those calls have mounted in recent weeks as the Limburg scandal has grabbed headlines and Tebartz-van Elst has faced calls for his resignation.
Zollitsch told reporters Monday that the decision by Hamburg prosecutors to ask the court to fine Tebartz-van Elst for providing false testimony in a related case was deeply worrisome.
"It represents a decisive step for us," he told reporters at the Vatican.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said Monday the situation in Limburg was "very difficult."
"Of course, it is not the German government's place to give any advice, but I may express the hope that it will be a solution for the faithful, for people's confidence in their church," Seibert said.
Last year, the church tax provided the German church with some 5.1 billion euros ($6.9 billion) in revenue.
Zollitsch said a canon lawyer was on a committee that has been set up to review the costs of the renovation, the financing and how decisions about the restoration evolved. The lawyer, he said, would determine if Tebarz-van Elst had violated canon law regarding the use of church money.
Tebartz-van Elst told the Bild newspaper that the bill was actually for 10 projects and there were additional costs because of regulations on buildings under historical protection.
He traveled to Rome on Sunday for talks at the Vatican about the scandal. It wasn't known if or when he would meet with the pope but no meeting was on Francis' official agenda Monday.
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Geir Moulson and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.
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