The revelation, delivered in a 108-page report, created a big time optics problem for Pope Francis who has tried to infuse the Catholic Church with humility. Francis — who met with President Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss “the poor, the marginalized…and growing inequality” — drives a Ford Focus. He also resides in a Vatican guesthouse, and likes to be called the Bishop of Rome, the most modest of his many titles.

Thursday, the Vatican still hummed with gossip. Tebartz-van Elst issued a statement in which he tried to shift blame to his top deputy, Vicar General Franz Kaspar, who he claims failed to oversee his spending habits.

Tebartz-van Elst said he’s not qualified to understand that building things can at times cost money. “As I am not an authority in the area of church management, as my qualification is in pastoral theory, I have to relinquish responsibility to Kaspar, who was the only person with an overarching view of the seat’s assets.”

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He claimed, the Local reports, that the lavish expenses were because he had witnessed other construction go wrong. So, he felt he needed to “observe the quality and durability of [this] entire project.”

In the time since this revelation, a lot of questions have surfaced. The diocese has announced the cleric will get a new job at the “opportune time,” but what will that job entail?

And also the simplest question of all: How did he spend all that money?

The long list of expenditures begins with a fish tank, but not just any old fish tank. According to the 108-page report, his two-meter deep fish tank, filled with Koi carp, cost of $300,000.

Item: garden. Bill: $917,000. Fun Fact: it was called the “Garden of Silence.”

Item: hanging an advent wreath. Bill : $25,000. Fun Fact : Workers had to open up the chapel roof — with a crane — to install it.

Item : heated stones. Bill : $26,000. Fun Fact : They were used to line outdoor paths for more comfortable walking.

Item: Bronze window frames. Bill: $2.38 million. Fun fact: The cost was supposed to be half that. But Tebartz-van Elst, the report shows, really wanted his window frames to be bronze.

Item: light switches. Bill: $27,000. Fun Fact: Really, they’re just light switches.

Item: doors. Bill: $673,000. Fun Fact: They were of the “highest quality.”

Item: art. Bill: $1.6 million.

Item: LED lights. Bill: $894,000. Fun Fact: They were built into floors, the walls, underneath steps, inside handrails and window frames — which were of course bronze.