Catholic Archbishops - Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

Archbishop Timothy "porky Pig" Dolan who lives in a $30 million mansion

The hypocrisy that plagues the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is so pervasive that it is difficult to know where to start, although the Church's official position that gays are "inherently disordered" even as prelates protect predator priests and engage in obstruction of justice is always one starting point.  Another is the dichotomy between the Gospel message of selling one's goods and giving to the poor and the opulent lifestyles of America's Roman Catholic archbishops who in addition to often looking like they've never missed a single meal, live in the splendor of oligarchs.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the hypocrisy of these nasty men.  Here are excerpts:

CNN’s Belief Blog has a great rundown of the lavish homes of American archbishops who haven’t gotten the memo from Pope Francis about a “church which is poor and for the poor.” CNN reports that “10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million.” The median home value in the U.S. is $174,200.

Not surprisingly, that list includes some of the nation’s most outspoken conservative bishops—and allies of the Republican Party—who seem to take the whole “prince of the church” thing more literally than some of their fellow prelates. Here’s a rundown:

• New York Cardinal Timothy “Capitalism is King but you can get your birth control at 7-11” Dolan lives in a 15,000-square foot neo-Gothic mansion on Madison Avenue appraised at $30 million.

• Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who warned a few years back that the local gay pride parade might “morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan,” lives in a “one of a kind,” 19-chimneyed mansion in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood conservatively valued at $14.3 million. And he is waited on by three nuns who live in a nearby coach house—very Downton Abbey.

• Seattle Archbishop James Sartain, who is currently in charge of making sure that the naughty nuns of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious don’t spend too much time worrying about social justice issues, lives alone in a charming three-story brick Victorian home valued at $3.84 million.

• Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, head of the bishop’s Committee on Religious Liberty—the epicenter of the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage and the contraception mandate—and the man supposedly behind the investigation of the LCWR, lives in a 11,5000-square foot historic mansion that dates back to the first Catholic bishop of the United States.

• And last but certainly not least, Newark Archbishop John Myers, who has come under fire for the diocese’s failure to supervise a known predator priest and has been an outspoken opponent of John Kerry and other pro-choice Catholics, is adding a $500,000, 3,000-square foot wing to his $800,000, 4,500-square foot weekend/retirement home nestled on 8.2 wooded aces in New Jersey’s tony Hunterdon Country.  He needed the extra space for “an indoor exercise pool”—the house already has a large outdoor pool—“a hot tub, three fireplaces and a library.”

If you really want to vomit, especially since dioceses are closing schools and churches for lack of funds, read the entire CNN piece here.   Once again I find myself wondering why anyone moral and decent listens to a word these men have to say.  Like the Christofascists in general, they are today's modern day Pharisees.