Speaking of unusual real estate dealings in the Diocese of Camden: former President Bill Clinton announced yesterday that he is leaving Yucaipa Business Partnerships, an investment firm filled with Democratic Party operatives and Arabian oil sheiks run by  billionaire playboy Ron Burkle. The Wall Street Journal speculates that Clinton's projected $20 million Yucaipa payday has largely disappeared along with the rest of the economy.

Diocese-watchers will remember that one of Yucaipa's get-rich-quick schemes involved buying church properties at "bargain prices" (to use Andrew Walton's new favorite phrase) and reselling them to real estate developers for big profits. They gave pretty-boy huckster Raffaello Follieri tens of millions of dollars to schmooze Catholic bishops and make some deals. Four hundred thousand of those Yucaipa dollars ended up in Bishop Galante's private bank account after Follieri bought his personal condo. It was right around the time of the sale that Galante announced plans for the largest mass sell-off of church properties in the history of the American Catholic church.

The so-called "Vati-Con" scandal centering on Bishop Galante and the Yucaipa money came to light right around the time the Diocese was making its own purchase. Buyers told neighbors then that the new "country estate" in Pittsgrove was being bought as a retirement house for the Bishop. Nine months later, Follieri is serving a federal jail sentence, Bill Clinton is loosing his seat on Ron Burkle's plane, and five very lucky nuns from a nursing home in Elmer are living la vida loca with riding stables, wet bars, and eleven acres of luxury.