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POPE FRANCIS

‘Lavish’ bishop flies Ryanair for Pope talks

A German bishop who is under fire for spending €31 million on his new headquarters, including €15,000 on a bath tub, was summoned to Rome on Sunday – and flew with budget airline Ryanair.

'Lavish' bishop flies Ryanair for Pope talks
Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst's future will be decided in Rome. Photo: Fredrik von Erichsen/DPA/AFP

The Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz van Elst, has splashed out €15,000 on a bath tub, €738,000 on a garden and €25,000 on a conference table at his new residence in west Germany, angering the public and press and attracting the attention of Pope Francis.

The Pope has brought a more modest style of leadership to the Catholic church, but the bishop’s extravagance has brought criticism from all corners that the church being out of touch.

On Sunday he boarded the 6.35am Ryanair flight from Frankfurt-Hahn airport to Rome where his future will be decided, the Bild newspaper reported.

He will have to explain, how he has spent €31 million of church money on his headquarters next to Limburg cathedral when the original estimate was €3 million. According to newspaper the Welt am Sonntag the costs will be even higher, reaching €40 million.

He will meet the head of the Catholic Church in Germany, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, while in Rome.

The financial committee of the diocese claims their members were left in the dark about the spending. Costs on the residence escalated as churches closed.

The chairman of the administrative council in one parish in the bishop’s diocese Benno Hofmann told the Welt am Sonntag the bishop was “living 300 years too late”. “Our bishop has no sense that what he has done is wrong,” he said.

The 53 year-old is also accused of lying under oath and taking first class fights to visit the poor in India last year.

A statement from the diocese said: "The bishop has made it clear that any decision about his service as a bishop lies in the hands of the Holy Father [Pope Francis].

"The bishop is saddened by the escalation of the current discussion. He sees and regrets that many believers are suffering under the current situation."

READ MORE: Catholic bishop spends €350,000 on wardrobes

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POPE FRANCIS

Pope Francis meets Viktor Orban in worldview clash

Pope Francis met with the anti-migration Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban behind closed doors on Sunday at the start of a brief visit to Budapest where he will also celebrate a mass. 

Pope Francis meets Viktor Orban in worldview clash
The Pope embarked on September 12 on his 34th international trip for a one-day visit to Hungary for an international Catholic event and a meeting with the country's populist leader, and a three-day visit to Slovakia. Photo: Tiziana FABI / AFP

The head of 1.3 billion Catholics — in Hungary to close the International Eucharistic Congress — met Orban, accompanied by Hungarian President Janos Ader, in Budapest’s grand Fine Arts Museum.

The Vatican television channel showed the pope entering the museum, but did not show images of the two men meeting, but Orban posted a photo of the two shaking hands on his Facebook page.

On one hand, Orban is a self-styled defender of “Christian Europe” from migration. On the other, Pope Francis urges help for the marginalised and those of all religions fleeing war and poverty.

But the pope’s approach to meet those who don’t share his worldview, eminently Christian according to the pontiff, has often been met with incomprehension among the faithful, particularly within the ranks of traditionalist Catholics.

Over the last few years, there has been no love lost between Orban supporters in Hungary and the leader of the Catholic world.

Pro-Orban media and political figures have launched barbs at the pontiff calling him “anti-Christian” for his pro-refugee sentiments, and the “Soros Pope”, a reference to the Hungarian-born liberal US billionaire George Soros, a right-wing bete-noire.

‘Not here for politics’

From early Sunday, groups of pilgrims from around the country, some carrying signs with their hometowns written on them, were filing under tight security toward the vast Heroes’ Square in Budapest, where the pontiff will say mass to close the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress.

“We are not here for any politics, but to see and hear the pope, the head of the Church. We can hardly wait to see him. It is wonderful that he is visiting Budapest,” Eva Mandoki, 82, from Eger, some 110 kilometres (70 miles) east of the capital, told AFP.

Eyebrows have also been raised over the pontiff’s whirlwind visit.

His seven-hour-long stay in 9.8-million-population Hungary will be followed immediately by an official visit to smaller neighbour Slovakia of more than two days.

“Pope Francis wants to humiliate Hungary by only staying a few hours,” said a pro-Orban television pundit.

Born Jorge Bergoglio to a family of Italian emigrants to Argentina, the pope regularly reminds “old Europe” of its past, built on waves of new arrivals.

And without ever naming political leaders he castigates “sovereigntists” who turn their backs on refugees with what he has called “speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934”.

In April 2016, the pope said “We are all migrants!” on the Greek island of Lesbos, gateway to Europe, bringing on board his plane three Syrian Muslim families whose homes had been bombed.

‘Hungary Helps’

In contrast, Orban’s signature crusade against migration has included border fences and detention camps for asylum-seekers and provoked growing ire in Brussels.

Orban’s supporters point instead to state-funded aid agency “Hungary Helps” which works to rebuild churches and schools in war-torn Syria, and sends doctors to Africa.

Orban’s critics, however, accuse him of using Christianity as a shield to deflect criticism and a sword to attack opponents while targeting vulnerable minorities like migrants.

Days before the pope’s arrival posters appeared on the streets of the Hungarian capital — where the city council is controlled by the anti-Orban opposition — reading “Budapest welcomes the Holy Father” and showing his quotes including pleas for solidarity and tolerance towards minorities.

During the pope’s stay in Budapest he will also meet the country’s bishops, and representatives of various Christian congregations, as well as leaders of the 100,000-strong Hungarian Jewish community, the largest in Central Europe.

Orban — who is of Calvinist Protestant background — and his wife — who is a Catholic — are to attend the mass later Sunday.

Around 75,000 people have registered to attend the event, with screens and

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