Spanish archbishop defends work completed on new residence

A Spanish archbishop reacted angrily to complaints by local clergy that he wasted money on a "luxurious residence" for himself in one of the country's most-deprived regions.

Archbishop Santiago Garcia Aracil of Merida-Badajoz said in a brief posting on the archdiocesan website that the work on the residence and the archdiocesan seminary was approved by an advisory council before it began.

"I reject these libelous and defamatory claims," Garcia wrote.

"I have received abundant expressions of understanding and support from priests, religious and laity throughout the diocese, lamenting that the source of this information is a very small group of priests," he said.

The posting came in response to a Nov. 2 letter from 50 unnamed clergy in the western Spanish province of Extremadura to the Madrid-based papal nuncio, Archbishop Renzo Fratini. The letter accused Garcia of living an "excessive, ostentatious, scandalous and undesirable" lifestyle.

Spanish media reported that Garcia decided to move a short distance from his former residence into a new 1,500-square foot luxury apartment on the third floor of the archdiocesan offices. The final cost of the new residence is unknown because the work was arranged privately.

The seminary work cost about $1.9 million, the clergy said in their letter, suggesting that a similar amount was spent on the archbishop's residence.

Garcia said the accusations were "lacking in truth" and "clearly biased," adding that funds set aside for his residence were much less than the priests claimed.

"The works undertaken have been evaluated as necessary for the diocese by the diocesan councils and have followed formalities prescribed by the church's law," Garcia said.

The archbishop, a native of Valencia, Spain, is expected to retire at 75 in May after a decade as head of the archdiocese, according to La Cronica de Badajoz daily.

Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta has been appointed coadjutor archbishop; he had served as secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy.

In their letter to the nuncio, the priests said Garcia had acted like "a viceroy who listens to no one" and would leave the diocese with debt totaling more than $4.6 million after deciding to refurbish offices with marble floors, hot tub and whirlpool, mirrored dressing room and high-tech library.

"The diocese has enough to offer its serving and retired archbishops, so these costs are shocking and untimely," the letter said.

"To flaunt such luxury in Spain's poorest region, where unemployment stands at 29 percent and 64 percent among the young, does not reflect a church which has to be in line with the realities of our people and the demands of the Gospel," the clergy wrote.

Spain's El Diario daily reported Wednesday there were uncertainties about the letter's authorship, but added that local government officials in Extremadura also had complained about the archbishop's "offensive lifestyle" when some church activities were publicly funded.