Obama’s Former Pastor Getting $1.6M Home in Retirement
The four- bedroom, 10,000-plus square foot home that Trinity United Church of Christ is building for Reverend Jeremiah Wright. (FNC Photo)
By Jeff Goldblatt
This was supposed to be the week that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. returned to the pulpit to preach for the first time since his anti-American sermons generated nationwide outrage and drew condemnation from his longtime parishioner, Barack Obama.
But, citing security concerns, Wright canceled his speaking engagements in Florida and Texas. A spokeswoman at his former church in Chicago said his schedule is pending.
A two-week FOX News investigation, however, has uncovered where Wright will be spending a good deal of his time in retirement, and it is a far cry from the impoverished Chicago streets where the preacher led his ministry for 36 years.
FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community.
While it is not uncommon for an accomplished clergyman to live in luxury, Wright’s retirement residence is raising some questions.
“Some people think deals like this are hypocritical. Jeremiah Wright himself criticizes people from the pulpit for middle classism, for too much materialism,” said Andrew Walsh, Associate Director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life with Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
“So he’s entitled to be tweaked here. So the question really is, how unusual is this? Somewhat unusual,” he said.
According to documents obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds, Wright purchased two empty lots in Tinley Park, Ill., from Chicago restaurant chain owner Kenny Lewis for $345,000 in 2004.
Documents show Wright sold the property to his church, Trinity United, in December 2006, with the proceeds going to a living trust shared with his wife, Ramah.
The sale price for the land was just under $308,000, about $40,000 less than Wright’s original purchase two years earlier.
Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land.
But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork.
There is apparently nothing wrong with that, according to non-profit tax expert Jack Siegel of Charity Governance Consulting, who examined public documents FOX News obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds and the Village of Tinley Park.
“At least looking at it from a public document standpoint, there’s clearly not a problem that jumps out or some sort of wrongdoing,” Siegel said.
Siegel characterizes the transaction as unusual, however, because of the way Wright sold the property to Trinity and the way the deal was financed, with the attached $10 million line of credit.
Because churches are classified as private businesses, Trinity isn’t required to reveal its intended use for the line of credit. Nor, because it’s a non-profit entity, is it required to provide that information to the IRS.
A spokesman for ShoreBank, the Chicago-based financial institution that secured mortgages for the loans, said the deals were aboveboard.
Wright did not respond to repeated calls for comment, and Trinity United refused to discuss the specifics of the home it is building for him and the way the deal was financed.
The church referred FOX News to its denominational headquarters in Cleveland, which provided a statement of support:
“It is customary and appropriate in many Christian denominations, including the United Church of Christ, for local churches to offer housing provisions for retiring clergy, especially in cases where pastors have served long-term pastorates. We support efforts by our 5,700 local churches to ensure that retiring pastors and spouses have continuing housing, adequate pension and health care, as an expression of our continuing appreciation for their years of service. Each local UCC congregation is free to honor a retiring pastor in ways it feels most appropriate to address the needs of that clergyperson’s circumstances,” wrote the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, spokesman for UCC’s national office.
“This is about how these kinds of churches work,” notes Walsh. “These pastors who made big successful churches are real valuable commodities. Is it morally wrong? Well, Protestants don’t have the idea that their religious leaders should live modestly or aesthetically. We’re not talking Buddhist monks or Catholic priests here. There’s no tradition that says they have to live poor.”
Tradition at Trinity United centers on a congregation that’s unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian, according to the church’s website. There are also no apologies from the church for the home it’s building for its former senior pastor, who nurtured a religious empire that grew to have more than 8,000 congregants.
It is typical for a pastor of a church as large as his to have nice things. I would not only be critical of Rev Wright, but people such as Rod Parsley, Jim Swaggart, T.D. Jakes, Paula White, and the list goes on and on. Churches get tax expemption brakes that other operations don’t get. Rev Wright started this church with only 40 members back in the early 1970’s and the church has like 10,000 members now. Of course the man is going to be compensated for his service. No rational person would honestly think he would live amongst the average South Side Chicago citizen when he has build such a large ministry. There are plenty of wealthy ministers in this country and Rev Wright is certainly one of them.
You definitely aren’t talking Catholic priests here: They have weekend places in addition (the Boston diocese had to sell theirs after the huge you-know-what scandal) and live like lords of the manor in their well-appointed parish houses.
This house may be a bit over the top but far better than what happened to my own grandfather, also a UCC minister for 32 years in one large church: He received a silver bowl from the congregation and spent his remaining life (20 years) living in my parents’ house.
Wright and Obama smell to high heaven. These two clowns cant be trusted.
Its time for whitey to start demanding some apologies from these two morons.
Obama is a racist thru and thru, we dont need this trash in the White house.
I find this story so amusing I almost laughed to the point of falling off my chair. I just wonder how many of the former pastor Wright’s new neighbors will be White, and how many of his neighbors will be Blacks who also attend his former church.
When I lived in Oak Park, a literal stone’s throw away from the Chicago city limits, my neighborhood was pretty much as the National average regarding population mix. Just a few miles west, in 1976, was the area where the rich moved to after Oak Park ceased being a naturally segregated community, segregated by the cost of the houses.
I guess you can’t expect a Black retired Pastor to live in the neighborhood his church and flock were in during all his years of leading his flock. I don’t know why, it would seem to me that a man would be more comfortable living among those he ministered to, and seeing his work bring about good things. Maybe if a man realises that all his life’s work was aimed at racial segregation and the denigration of the ability of his flock to be equal to those he railed against, he might find it an uncomfortable community since he would be living among all those who failed in their lives specifically because they lived the lie that hatred breeds, and because he would be reminded each and every day of the abject failure of his ideals in improving anyone’s life other than his own. I guess he doen’t hate “the middle class” anymore, now that he is going to be living among them. If you want to know what a man believes, close your ears and open your eyes. His words are meaningless if they are not accompanied by actions that lead to the outcome his words suggest is the intent. This house makes it easy for anyone to KNOW what Mr. Wright believes in, and it is not afro-centric love of the land his ancestors came from, but a nice comfortable house in a neighborhood where he needn’t turn his head to determine who is making the footsteps behind him, he can know it is a white person and he therefore needs not be afraid. Ask Jesse Jackson about this, he knows exactly what this is.
So what is new here, Something here smells. The IRS shouldlook into this.
Very hypocritical, sounds to me like he is not very unprivilaged and should practice what he preaches, but of course that applies to everyone else.
So sad!!!!!!
The man is entitled to a comfortable retirement. He worked hard. HOWEVER, this home seems at face value a bit over the top.
“While it is not uncommon for an accomplished clergyman to live in luxury”, where does Hagee, Parsley, Robinson etc live in. This witchhunt of the Revd Wright is nothing short of racism, Fox is the most racist news organisation in the country and it shows now more than ever.
I am curious how the new home compares to where he has lived recently? Personally I think that the new home is a bit over the top. But more importantly I can’t imagine any intelligent person believing the crapo that this so called minister preached from his pulpit. Furthermore I could never vote for Obama now knowing that he would go to a church where the congregation cheered Reverend Wright as he preached his beliefs. It is even harder for me to believe that any black person would want their children to be taught his racial beliefs. I have many wonderful friends who just happen to be black and I wouldn’t trade their friendships for anything.
Sincerely,
JoAnne Smith
you people have nothing else better to do. fox needs to get a life there is way more important issues at hand. leave that man alone he’s done nothing but told the truth about america and our silly government that has repeatedly lied to us over and over again. maybe that 10 million is going toward something that really needs to be done in that community so you really shouldnt report about things that you do not know about. racism has been alive and there’s nothing wrong with making people aware of things that go on such as false reporting and slander of a great man.