Bishop 'loses his cassock on the stock market'

[emad]

The Independent
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
02 April 2005


One hundred and eighty outraged priests in a Spanish parish near Valencia have launched a rebellion against their bishop, who last week slashed their wages and asked them to make up the difference by dipping into the collection box.

At least one aggrieved priest sought advice yesterday from the socialist trade union federation, the UGT, which claims never to have come across a case of its kind. The extraordinary cost-cutting exercise in the diocese of the Right Rev Juan Antonio Reig Pla, the Bishop of Segorbe-Castellón, has been prompted by its dire finances. Under the bishop's stewardship, debts have accrued of more than €5m (£3.4m).

Amid a flurry of rumours, priests say the losses were caused by the bishop's forays into the stock market. Spanish media has reported that ill-advised investments produced losses of €800,000, an allegation the bishop's spokesman, Elias Sanz, denied yesterday as "infamous".

But Alvaro Miralles, priest of the parish of Santa Maria Magdalena in Villafranca del Cid, insisted: "The stock exchange, not just for a priest but for any Christian, is an institution that enables the rich to gain and the poor to lose. What is the Church doing, playing that game? They have spent money they shouldn't have."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=625541

[emad]

1. Was he investing in Zion Oil & Gas???? DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1347370

[patricia92243]

2. Wonder what that says for putting our SS in the Stock Market.

[damntexdem]

3. So they should unionize.

On strike, shut it down, the Catholic Church, is a union town! Heh, heh.