A LEADING Catholic priest has criticised Cardinal George Pell for reserving a "grand apartment" for himself at the Australian church's new guest house in Rome, saying "the ethics of our secular state are higher than those of our church".
Father Eric Hodgens, of Melbourne, an elder statesman among the clergy, also savaged Australia's Catholic bishops for what he regards as an abject performance during their five-yearly visit to Rome last month, particularly in failing to stand up for Bill Morris, sacked earlier this year as bishop of Toowoomba.
"They eat their own when fingered by Rome," Father Hodgens wrote of the bishops in The Swag, the national journal of Catholic priests. "How can you trust them?
''They are reckless with our patrimony. They seem incapable of protecting their own rights, let alone ours, in a system which is corrupt by today's secular standards. No wonder the attitude of so many priests and observant laity is moving from disappointment to disgust," he wrote.
Father Hodgens said the Domus Australia guest house in Rome - a beautifully refurbished old religious house with 33 rooms for paying visitors, a richly restored grand chapel and organ and a 150-seat auditorium opened by Pope Benedict XVI last month - cost between $30 million and $85 million, according to different estimates.
He said Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, had hoped all Australian dioceses would pay for it, but only Melbourne, Perth and Lismore had made contributions and the Sydney Archdiocese had paid the bulk.
He said Catholics of the four dioceses were not consulted, there was no prospect of a reasonable financial return and no accountability. "What does it say of us who trust bishops?
The ethics of our secular state are higher than those of our church."
Secrecy also surrounded the sacking of Bishop Morris, who never saw the charges against him or the report by an "inquisitorial visitor", Archbishop Charles Chaput, then of Denver, he said.
"And the Australian bishops simply rolled over … . they thanked their humiliators for being generous with their time," Father Hodgens wrote.
"Thank God we live in a secular state and not in a Catholic theocracy," he said.
Cardinal Pell is overseas but a Sydney Archdiocese spokeswoman said the total cost to develop the Australian pilgrim centre in Rome was similar to that of a new parish or school, ''not the excessive amounts quoted by some ill-informed sources'', and the investment was expected to pay its way.
''Domus Australia was funded by the transfer of an underutilised property investment to this purpose and by borrowings and donations,'' she said.
''No money raised through parish collections has been used in this initiative.''