Windsor Priest convicted of embezzling from church to fund Disney trips, fine dining

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Churches and other nonprofits need to have financial controls. Never subject people to temptation by giving them unsupervised access to cash.
 
DaddyGirl said:
There are many people in this world who are honest, and even with easy access to other people’s cash…they would never steal and do not.

Unfortunately, there are some who do.
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Good controls over church finances also protects those who are honest and innocent.

If a parish has good controls over collection and counting of cash/checks, and also has good controls over writing checks, the innocent are protected from spurious accusations. If no one person can print out a check and sign it, there is a witness to your actions. If a parishioner accused a priest of stealing money, he could have the parish office manager (who prepares the checks) to vouch that he has not done so and that all money is accounted for.
 
Its really a bad idea for priests to handle the parish finances anyway - allegations like this will arise justified or not, and its a bad use of the priest’s time.
 
**The rest, about $40,000, came from services such as funerals, weddings and baptisms, he said. **

Bizarre. How can he double his salary by doing things that are free of charge?
 
peter26 said:
Its really a bad idea for priests to handle the parish finances anyway - allegations like this will arise justified or not, and its a bad use of the priest’s time.
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In our diocese, the priest is the only one who can sign the checks, and someone else must be in charge of preparing the checks and keeping the accounting records. In that way, no one person has sole control of the funds.

Usually, the Office Manager prepares the checks, and the priest will sign them. That allows him control over parish funds, but he is not burdened with paperwork and accounting issues.

It’s amazing to me in this day and age that we still hear stories like this. It is inexcusable for such lazy and lax policies and procedures for a diocese and parish.
 
peter26 said:
Its really a bad idea for priests to handle the parish finances anyway - allegations like this will arise justified or not, and its a bad use of the priest’s time.
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I thought that in Canon Law the parish priest (who is acting on behalf of the bishop) has complete authority over all parish assets and cash. A lay person can be appointed by him to oversee finances, but he has complete authority to over-rule any lay-person he has appointed and take can control of the finances himself.
 
The thing that I find hardest to get my head around how a Priest, presumably with a vocation, can continue to commit crimes in secret over and over. Don’t they know God sees all? I can only think there must be a serious personality disorder in play like narcissism and sociopathy :confused: :confused: :confused:
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Churches and other nonprofits need to have financial controls. Never subject people to temptation by giving them unsupervised access to cash.
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I worked at a non-profit that had three people handle the money that was donated. All three of them were caught stealing the donations. Greed is not good. :eek:
 
LongingSoul said:
The thing that I find hardest to get my head around how a Priest, presumably with a vocation, can continue to commit crimes in secret over and over. Don’t they know God sees all? I can only think there must be a serious personality disorder in play like narcissism and sociopathy :confused: :confused: :confused:
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Same way we all do. Rarely is the time ( I suspect) that most of us sin without knowing right from wrong, deep down.
 
WKW_69 said:
I worked at a non-profit that had three people handle the money that was donated. All three of them were caught stealing the donations. Greed is not good. :eek:
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That is why no single person should be allowed control of cash or writing checks. Should always have a second person involved as a control mechanism. Temptations from money are powerful.
 
Joe_5859 said:
Isn’t “couture” the word for fancy, high-end clothing? And he was spending money lavishly. :o
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Oh, I see where you were going with that. To me that’s “haute couture” (high sewing) and “couture” without “haute” is simply sewing or a seam.
 
it makes you wonder if there are any other priests out there who haven’t been caught yet. This is why we need to pray for our priests.
I am glad this priest was finally caught. I wonder who they call in to do a forensic audit. I am sure parishoners feel betrayed.
 
7_Sorrows said:
it makes you wonder if there are any other priests out there who haven’t been caught yet. This is why we need to pray for our priests.
I am glad this priest was finally caught. I wonder who they call in to do a forensic audit. I am sure parishoners feel betrayed.
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It happened in my baptismal parish about 10 years ago. The priest who was administrator stole just over 116K from the 4 parishes he was responsible for ($25K from my parish), that after having “borrowed” all of a gullible parishioner’s life savings of over $100K. It wasn’t more simply because they’re small parishes with small budgets.

I couldn’t understand since all these parishes had finance councils but apparently they weren’t as in the know as the finance council in my present parish. We see everything. He moved funds between parishes and made some disappear in the process. He was convicted, sentenced to 18 months in prison and made to repay the funds. The issue with the parishioner was settled out of court. By the time he was sentenced he was being referred to as “former Roman Catholic priest”. Not sure if it was bad reporting for “former Pastor” or if he’d been laicized.
 
Phemie said:
It happened in my baptismal parish about 10 years ago. The priest who was administrator stole just over 116K from the 4 parishes he was responsible for ($25K from my parish), that after having “borrowed” all of a gullible parishioner’s life savings of over $100K. It wasn’t more simply because they’re small parishes with small budgets.

I couldn’t understand since all these parishes had finance councils but apparently they weren’t as in the know as the finance council in my present parish. We see everything. He moved funds between parishes and made some disappear in the process. He was convicted, sentenced to 18 months in prison and made to repay the funds. The issue with the parishioner was settled out of court. By the time he was sentenced he was being referred to as “former Roman Catholic priest”. Not sure if it was bad reporting for “former Pastor” or if he’d been laicized.
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I know this doesn’t just happen in Catholic churches, but as a convert I am shocked. There should be safeguards by now to prevent this. This
is a betrayal of the parishoner’s trust that when they put money in the collection basket it is going where it is supposed to!
 
7_Sorrows said:
I know this doesn’t just happen in Catholic churches, but as a convert I am shocked. There should be safeguards by now to prevent this. This
is a betrayal of the parishoner’s trust that when they put money in the collection basket it is going where it is supposed to!
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I agree. That’s why a finance council is mandated by Canon Law. The problem is that in a lot of places the finance council just gets a financial report, if they get that, and they don’t see the day to day spending. Many council members are not bookkeeping savvy and can’t read a balance sheet.

When I was working as secretary for my parish and made responsible for paying the bills, the fact that I couldn’t understand what a balance sheet was all about frustrated me to no end. I applied to the local community college for an online accounting course and stopped depending on the bookkeeper to tell me where we stood financially. I started keeping my own records and and doing my own calculations. By the time we took everything to her at the end of the month I already knew where we stood.

It’s easy for a priest to get away with overspending or even getting stuff for himself that he makes the parish pay for. When we found ourselves without a pastor for a year a priest was appointed administrator. He had a taste for the finer things and one day I found myself in the position of having to reimburse him for a complete edition of the Oxford dictionary – over $1500. He’d charged it to his credit card and was making the three parishes he was responsible for pay $500+ each for it.

I asked him what possible need we could have for such an expensive item and he claimed that it was vital because we had priests coming to the parishes for whom English was a second language. That made me see red. Lots of people have Masters degrees in English without ever having had their hands on the Complete Oxford. I learned English as a second language with nothing more than the Merriam-Webster on my desk. I let him know how angry I was at the extravagance without being rude. He was angry at being challenged and standing up for my parish only got me threatened as in “Be careful, I can get angry too.” He still got the bill paid by the three parishes. It showed up as office supplies and nobody would have really questioned it in an income statement.
 
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