It's not just the Roman Catholic princes

In a June 10 Truthdig article on Jesuit activist Dan Berrigan, Chris Hedges writes about Trinity Church (also known as Trinity Wall Street), the third-largest landowner in Manhattan.

Hedges tells how Berrigan joined others in Zuccotti Park to ask Trinity to drop charges against Occupy activists for occupying an empty lot owned by the church. They wanted to set up a new Liberty Square after police threw them out of Zuccotti Park last November. Trinity's response: arrest the demonstrators. It refused to drop charges, and eight of the 65 protestors went on trial today. They could get a three-month jail sentence.

Hedges reports that the rector of Trinity, Rev. Dr. James Cooper, "earns$1.3 million a year, lives in a $5.5 million SoHo townhouse, receives a church allowance to maintain his Florida condo, dips into church funds to take his family on African safaris and oversees the church’s $1 billion in Manhattan real estate holdings from which the church receives as much as $30 million a year. He spent $5 million on a public relations campaign, nearly double the $2.7 million the church gave out in grants, in one year. Ten of the church’s 22-member vestry—its board of directors—have quit over Cooper’s authoritarianism and extravagance."

Hedges writes In conclusion that Cooper "has turned Trinity Church into a temple to greed. He is an appropriate priest for Wall Street."

What would Jesus wear?

Some of you on my email lists may recall a slideshow that I sent out a couple of years ago. It was a series of photos of the former archbishop of St. Louis, Raymond Leo Burke. He and his entourage were dressed in ornate vestments that they must have believed had something to do with Jesus of Nazareth.

Here are just two of those photos, which I think were all taken in St. Louis::





Four years ago, Archbishop Burke was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to be the head of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican equivalent of the U.S. Supreme Court.) In November of 2010, Burke was made a cardinal. At those heights, he must have graduated to an even more extravagant ceremonial wardrobe.

A friend recently sent me the link to an article that reveals some of the prices paid by the best-dressed princes of the church. Readers, you should first take a very deep breath.

Cassock: $775.00

Sash: $243.00

Pectoral cross: $2,502.00

Zucchetto (beanie): $173.75

Biretta (square hat with pom-pom): $347.50

Alb (white garment worn over cassock): $550.00

Chasuble (outer garment for Mass): $12,500.00

Gloves: $1,390.00 a pair (four sets for four colors)

Ceremonial shoes: $1,112.00 a pair

Buskins (leggings): $1,112.00 a pair

Mitre (the tall pointed hat), three styles:
$1,042.00
$8,340.00
$18,070.00

I have omitted other very expensive vestments including the tunic, dalmatic and cope.

This stuff is available at stores in Rome including the following:

* Ars-Regia, found online at www.tridentinum.com (One must register to see prices.)

* Gammarelli, a family business that goes back to 1798, found at http://www.gammarelli.com

Meanwhile, back in Nazareth of Galilee...