Fox News carried the story of the Diocese of Camden's $800,000 convent purchase on its national website yesterday.  Click here to see the article. 

So, I guess we here at St. Mary's were not the only people to find this shocking!

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.

In 2005, there were approximately 440,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Camden according to the Diocese of Camden's Demographic Report.  On April 3, 2008, when the Bishop announced his reconfiguration plan, he claimed there were 500,000 Catholics in the diocese.  Why does this matter?  It's quite simple really and it involves....yup, you guessed it, Raffaello Follieri.

 

 

 

According to a National Catholic Reporter Article from February 2006 titled "Real estate developer with ties to 'Vatican hierarchy' in pursuit of U.S. church property:"

 

"Raffaello Follieri and Andrea Sodano visited the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington, site of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops annual meeting. An escalator ride up from the general assembly meeting room, the Follieri Group maintained a hospitality suite for bishops. At that meeting, by a vote of 222-2, the bishops agreed to seek Vatican approval for an amendment to church policy that would allow large dioceses (those with more than 500,000 Catholics) to sell or mortgage properties for up to $10.3 million without Rome's prior consent. The previous $5.1 million limit, said those supporting the change, was increasingly cumbersome in the go-go real estate market affecting U.S. dioceses nationwide." (Emphasis added).

Hmmm, so properties that would sell for more than $5.1 million (like say St. Gregory's) would require Vatican approval......unless we have 500,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Camden. 

Guess what?  We now have 500,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Camden:

"Welcome.Thank you for visiting the website of the Diocese of Camden. The diocese was founded in 1937 and serves 500,000 Catholics in Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland Gloucester, and Salem Counties, New Jersey."

The 440,000 figure is from the Diocese of Camden's Demographic Report, available on their website:

"Comparing the 2005 census update, the 2005 Catholic Directory, and the parish reports to the 111,240 average attendance indicates that 25.4% of the Catholic population of South Jersey attends mass regularly."

The 500,000 number has no demographical or statistical basis.  An overnight, inexplicable jump of 60,000 Catholics?  A startling 13.5% increase in the number of Catholics in the diocese, without any notice or explanation?  At that rate of growth, our Catholic population would more than double every 15 years.

 

I think not!  Sad, pathetic, despicable!  I might not know much about centering prayers, labyrinths, or ecofeminism, but I'm pretty sure lying and stealing are still sins.  And when they are coming from priests and bishops, they are scandalous as well!

This is the first piece in a new category called "Following the Money Trail."  Over the coming weeks, we will be taking a detailed look at various financial transactions of the diocese and key players in the diocese.  I'm sure you'll find the results very interesting.

Let's start with the diocese's purchase of a new "Convent" at 425 Langley Road in Pittsgrove.  Tax records show the property was purchased in July 2008 for $800,000.  Since it's so close to us, we snapped a few pictures so you could see this humble convent for yourself.

 The description from its listing reads:

Enticingly Elegant is this lavish 5-6BR, 11+ ac. Country estate of ¨White Fence Farms¨ Cust. blt. Cape. Home incl grand entr Foyer, Liv/GreRm w/FP, DR, sensa. kit, GameR w/Wet Bar, & SunR! Full walk out bsmnt onto fab grou. incl. circ dvwy w/fount., 3 car att./2 car det. gar, rear patio, 6+ stall barn, 3 run in sheds! Call today!...

 

 

If you're thinking, "That doesn't look like a convent to me" or "If I'd known, I would have taken a vow of poverty too," you're not alone.  It's certainly anything but humble living.  The fact that it's financed by the donations of people who work just as hard as or harder than the mystery nuns who will occupy it, and could never afford such a lavish lifestyle, is a scandal.  So much for the often quoted "option for the poor" the diocese uses as a justification for funneling money to Camden and away from our own parishes and schools.  Also, the disparity between the way the nuns from St. Jude's were treated by the diocese and the way these mystery nuns are being treated is bewildering.  We'll follow up on that later. 

Of course the real irony is that the two closest churches to this property, St. Ann's in Elmer and St. Mary's in Malaga, are supposed to close in the near future.  If both churches were sold, the revenue generated would probably not exceed the amount spent on this "convent."  Ask yourself, what would Jesus do?  If your answer is close two churches and replace them with an "enticingly elegant" convent that will house a maximum of six nuns in complete luxury, then you probably went to the same school of Catholicism as Galante, Vollmer, McGrath and Peter "My Shoes Are So Shiny, I Can See My Reflection in Them" Joyce.   

Of course, while we were taking pictures, we noticed this sign on the ground.  After all, what's a diocesan real estate debacle without Budd Realty?  In this case, the McIlvaines appear to be the listing agent as well as the exclusive real estate consultant for the diocese.  Double bonus super deal! 

As an aside, when Follieri resold the Bishop's former condo, guess who the listing agent was?  Yup, Budd Realty, all the way from Woodbury to North Wildwood.

Anyway, back to the main topic.  So who is the Diocese so generously spending our donation dollars on?  (We are not aware of any  orders of equestrian nuns.)  Well, it looks like we'll find out soon enough! The home sat empty for awhile, but Raymour & Flanigan delivered furniture last week, and heating/cooling workers were there earlier this week. So we'll let you know just as soon as our new neighbors move in.