Cardinal Wuerl and the critic who won't let go

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 17, 2015

George Neumayr, the former editor of Catholic World Report, has been hounding Washington’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl, asking questions about the expensive “penthouse apartment” that now serves as the cardinal’s residence. Neumayr’s posted remarks about Cardinal Wuerl have been extremely negative, and his line of inquiry is obviously hostile; it’s not hard to understand why Cardinal Wuerl would want to avoid his questions.

But twice within the past week, Neumayr has been escorted out of a building where the cardinal was having a book-signing event. Neumayr insists that he was polite, and did not disrupt the event. Since I was not an eyewitness, I cannot vouch for the facts. But it seems clear that either a reporter refused to take “No comment” for an answer, or a prelate refused even to say that he would not comment. Journalists have a right to ask questions. Their subjects have the right not to answer. Someone misbehaved.

Meanwhile Neumayr’s increasingly shrill cries for public attention threaten to drown out the questions that he had originally asked. Is Cardinal Wuerl really living in opulence? Do the “personal chef” and the Embassy Row apartment bespeak a lifestyle at odds with the pleas of Pope Francis for a “Church that is poor, and for the poor?” When a German prelate was removed from office amid charges that he was the “Bishop of Bling,” it’s not unreasonable to ask such questions about the cardinal who has emerged as the American prelate most influential in the appointment of new bishops here.