Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [88]
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
The Reconfiguration saga took a new turn on November 16, 2006, when the archdiocese sold an East Boston parish, St. Mary Star of the Sea, for $850,000 to Michael Indresano, a commercial photographer. Twenty days later he resold the property for $2.65 million to a Brazilian-led evangelical sect, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Indresano had presented a plan to the archdiocese’s real estate office to develop a photography studio, six condos, and a parking lot, but the sale contract did not preclude him from changing his mind, which he did quite soon, pulling in a $1.8 million profit for the flip.22
The new church owner had sparked a huge controversy in Brazil in 1995, when a pastor “repeatedly kicked a statue of the country’s patron saint on national television, prompting condemnation of the UCKG by the Roman Catholic Church,” reported Laura Crimaldi of the Boston Herald. The church’s founding bishop “owns one of Brazil’s largest television stations, as well as radio stations, newspapers and a soccer team.”23
Peter Borré sent a letter of protest to the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C. David Castaldi promised further inquiry by the Reconfiguration oversight committee. Cardinal O’Malley, in a deft move, appointed a retired judge to conduct an investigation and write a report on what went wrong.
The archdiocese had turned down an earlier offer of $2 million from a different church. “A discussion with former [archdiocesan] chancellor David W. Smith lends credence to the notion that [the Boston archdiocese] was reluctant to get the word out that it was unwilling to convey the property to another religious institution, no matter what the nature of the denomination,” wrote Kevin J. Herlihy, the retired judge. “Mr. Smith also left no doubt that the Vicar General, Bishop Richard G. Lennon, D.D., saw, read and presented the memo dated January 19, 2006 to the [archdiocesan] Board of Consultors recommending no restriction in the deed to Indresano. Although the memo purports to be from Smith to the Vicar General, Smith could not rule out with certainty the possibility that Bishop Lennon actually prepared the recommendation.”24
By the time Judge Herlihy’s report was released, in October 2007, Lennon’s disastrous handling of Reconfiguration in Boston had catalyzed nine parishes into vigil and another round of canonical appeals in Rome. Cardinal O’Malley resisted sending in the police. He was relieved, however, to wash his hands of Lennon. In the culture of ecclesiastical princes, where mistakes are often rewarded, Richard Lennon would soon be moving on, and up, to assume a diocese of his own.
CHAPTER 7
FATHER MACIEL, LORD
OF PROSPERITY
Father Christopher Kunze was thirty-six when he began work at the Congregation for the Clergy in December 1997. His admiration for Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos grew quickly. The Colombian prefect with a silver mane and patrician bearing “spoke all the modern languages and knew Arabic, Hungarian, and Russian,” Kunze recalls. Journalists covering the Vatican considered Castrillón papabile, a cardinal on the short list to become pope.
Chris Kunze was an American. At six foot two, with receding blond hair and an easy smile, he was pursuing a master’s in theology at the university his religious order, the Legion of Christ, was building in Rome. His Vatican salary was about $28,000, which he signed over to the Legion. Kunze spoke German and therein lay his value. Cardinal Castrillón needed an undersecretary for case work from Germany and Austria. Kunze had spent several years in the Cologne archdiocese as a university chaplain, working to secure a presence for the Legion’s network of schools. The Jesuits and the Dominicans were centuries-old teaching orders, but the Legionaries had