Priests for Life rents an apartment in Rome for our international work.
The apartment is 600 square feet…it has three large rooms and a full bathroom (including one bedroom and a kitchen), as well a small terrace.
The rent for the apartment is approximately $1800 per month.
For the neighborhood in which the apartment is located— Trastevere (very trendy, charming and full of restaurants), the price we pay is considered good and better than competitive.
Over the last two decades, we have averaged between 20 and 50- “group” or “family" guests per year. Since the apartment can comfortably accommodate four people, the number of individual visitors in a year could easily exceed 100. These guests have overwhelmingly been made up of pro-life and Christian leaders, and members of the media (like Teresa Tomeo).
In addition to this, when members of the Priests for Life team have to go to Rome on Vatican or International business, our first choice is always to use the apartment.
Moreover, we have a full-time staff person working at the Vatican, who is able to utilize the apartment as a base of operations for our international activities, as well as a place for back-up storage.
Some misguided individuals, including bishops, have chosen to misrepresent all this, claiming that we “owned” extravagant property in Rome. We continue to marvel at the way some people think they can make things up about us to try to tarnish our reputation, and feel free to talk to others about their “concerns” instead of talking directly to us. In the end, they only hurt their own reputations and make themselves look like fools.