House too pricey for retiring bishop

SAN JOSE, California — The bishop for the Catholic Diocese of San Jose says he won’t live in a $2.3 million home the diocese bought for his retirement and that the house will be put up for sale.

Bishop Patrick J. McGrath told the San Jose Mercury News he plans instead to live in a rectory at one of the diocese’s parishes.

McGrath’s decision comes after the purchase of the 3,300-square-foot home raised concerns among some of the diocese’s 640,000 Catholics, given the church’s mission of charity and serving the poor.

It also appeared at odds with McGrath’s previously expressed concerns about housing inequality in Northern California.

The bishop said any profit from the home sale will be donated to a housing charity.

The home’s listing boasted of a “grand-sized chef’s kitchen,” “soaring ceilings” and “luxurious master ensuite” with a ”spa-like marble bathroom” in a “Tuscan estate.”

It was purchased with funds set aside for paying the costs of a bishop’s housing and upkeep after retirement, said diocese communications director Liz Sullivan. She said the diocese was “following the policy set forth by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops” in purchasing the home.

McGrath said the diocese got the proceeds from selling a condominium where his predecessor, retired Bishop Pierre DuMaine, lived before moving into assisted living.

“The fund is a fund that can be used for nothing else,” McGrath said earlier. “When I’m not around anymore, the house can be sold. It’s a good investment in that sense. It probably makes more money this way than if it were in the bank.” Still, the purchase appeared at odds with McGrath’s previously expressed concerns about housing inequality in Northern California.

In 2016, McGrath co-authored an article backing a $950-million bond measure for affordable housing in which he wrote “too many children and families are living in cars or tripled up with other families in small homes because they can’t afford the rent on their own.”

“There is no moral or social justification, no justification whatsoever, for the lack of housing,” he wrote.

McGrath said he would have preferred to live in a house because it would have the freedom to help the diocese but not disturb the priests in the rectories.

He said he looked at various homes but “they all had some kind of drawback.”