Posted on 06/21/2002 7:15:35 AM PDT by Liz
Queens parochial school principal who angered Catholic Church leaders by accusing a priest of looting school coffers to pay for a gay lover has won the backing of a prominent local Catholic educator.
"Your courage in stopping this outrage, even at the risk to your own employment, has taught all of your pupils a lesson they will long remember," the Rev. Richard Van Houten, president of Archbishop Molloy High School in Jamaica, wrote to Barbara Samide.
Van Houten went so far as to hint in the letter that he would come to Samide's rescue if she is ousted as principal of St. Elizabeth School in Ozone Park.
"If we have an opening in your field, we would be honored to have a person of your integrity on our faculty," he wrote.
"Your actions — and the tragic inaction of the clergy — underscore the need to end the culture of secrecy and the lack of accountability in the church," he added.
Samide, 39, blew the lid off a simmering tale of alleged sin and theft of school funds in a lawsuit filed in Queens Supreme Court on Wednesday against Brooklyn Bishop Thomas Daily and the Diocese of Brooklyn, which also runs Catholic parishes in Queens.
The suit charges that the vicar for southern Queens, Msgr. James Spengler, repeatedly ignored Samide's complaints that the Rev. John Thompson stole thousands from St. Elizabeth School coffers and spent much of it on a 19-year-old male go-go dancer he met at a Greenwich Village nightclub.
In addition, the suit charges that Thompson used his church-issued American Express card to pay for trips to a Florida nudist resort and a weekly visit to a Village massage parlor.
Samide states in the suit that Thompson, 50, spoke openly about being a "sugar daddy" to a teenage "houseboy," and moved his lover into the St. Elizabeth rectory in January 2001.
Samide, who joined the school in September 2000, also charges that Thompson stole $14,000 in profits from a school candy drive.
Frank DeRosa, a spokesman for the Brooklyn Diocese, insisted yesterday that Samide's job is not in jeopardy, adding, "She is the principal of the school."
The Queens district attorney's office has empaneled a grand jury to investigate the charges of missing funds. Samide is expected to be the star witness before that panel.
DeRosa said the church will "fully comply" with prosecutors' request for the school's financial records.
Thompson resigned from the parish March 23 and is living with his family.
How could the Chruch do this? Read over again the first part of the sentence in parathesis.
If the current system of Roman Catholicism is to survive, they need to clean house, not just pray. What is the use of praying if you just sit around and wait for someone else to do the job?
bttt
Pssst...that would be St Ignatius Loyola who led the counter-reformation. St Francis died in 1226.
How would this paticular situation have been changed? Do you advocate homosexual marriage?
Not all the bishops need to be removed. Our bishop, Galante has cleaned up a lot of the messes and not by sweeping the dirt under the rug.
Got me, I was commenting on the fact that not all bishops need to be removed.
Wouldn't bet on that. Such guys are high profile, but they have nothing on the nondenominational
"Bishop" who was just convicted of multiple rape by a Dallas court. The number of cases involving pedophiles in the public schools is proportional, and there are at least ten times as many male public schools teachers Most of these cases are not widely reported, and of course there are no stats, but
a little digging through case books will tell you that human perversity can produce some astounding results. We are just disgusted because this is the case of a priest, and the result in a thirty year long experiment in trusting homosexual priests.
And just out of curiosity
why are replying on a 4 year old thread?
Posted on 06/21/2002 9:15:35 AM CDT by Liz
It was convenient for them to buy into the therapeutic myth when there was a shortage of priests. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, they keep trying to change the subject.
The evil within is being rooted out of our Catholic human institution albeit seems a slow process. God is allowing all to happen for a reason. Our faith can still remain strong knowing He is in control.
Horrible. I had a friend who went to St. Elizabeth's, years ago, and she told me that it went crazy way back when. In fact, the entire diocese went crazy.
I was always very puzzled by Bp. Daily, because he was very pro-life and seemed orthodox in many ways - but he let the priests in his diocese get away with truly shocking things. Gayness was rampant, as was non-gay sexual corruption - I knew a heterosexual priest from Manhattan who was famous for sleeping around with any woman he could get his hands on who maintained a residence in Brooklyn because he knew it wouldn't matter if he was caught there. I don't know if Bp. Dailey was simply a truly inept manager, or compromised himself.
Unvelievable. Hit by the sickness of secularization.
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