Posted on 04/16/2005 11:24:59 PM PDT by CatherineSiena
A noted Catholic thinker who was brought in to run St. Anthony Catholic Church in south Omaha allegedly spent more than $400,000 in 1 and 1/2 years - at a small parish that normally spent about $50,000 a year.
Police are investigating the Rev. Peter Stravinskas' handling of St. Anthony's parish funds after parishioners filed a report of a possible embezzlement. Detectives have told a judge it appears parish money was spent on Stravinskas' personal expenses, including travel, mortgage payments and credit cards.
In a court filing last month, Omaha police said two parish funds - one worth $82,000 and the other worth $71,000 - were nearly wiped out. Only $4,200 remained from the $153,000 total, detectives told a judge.
But The World-Herald learned this week that those funds represented only part of St. Anthony's savings.
And people knowledgeable about the situation said the money taken from those accounts was only part of a larger amount spent from August 2002, when Stravinskas arrived, until March 2004, when the Archdiocese of Omaha froze parish funds.
Stravinskas has not been charged with a crime and remains St. Anthony's temporary administrator. He has declined to comment. He was scheduled to return Friday night from a trip to Rome, said the Rev. Nicholas Gregoris, who answered the door at the rectory Friday.
The Rev. Gregory Baxter, chancellor of the archdiocese, declined to comment, citing the police investigation.
Police have declined to comment on the extent of Stravinskas' alleged misspending.
Church financial records published in parish documents indicate, however, that St. Anthony had $313,000 in savings in January 2002. It is unclear what that total was when Stravinskas arrived that summer, but parishioners said St. Anthony had no extraordinary expenses before Stravinskas came.
The parish typically brought in about $50,000 a year and spent that much, said Albinas Reskevicius, a parish trustee for nearly 40 years until early 2003. He said he had no knowledge of parish spending since that time.
Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss brought Stravinskas, 54, to Omaha from Mount Pocono, Pa. A clerical group Stravinskas had founded there, the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, had been disbanded.
Stravinskas has written numerous books and founded magazines, the Catholic Answer and the Catholic Response, defending traditional Roman Catholic teachings.
Stravinskas, a native of New Jersey, is a priest of the Diocese of Boise, Idaho, but hasn't worked there in 25 years.
Stravinskas shares Lithuanian ancestry with many of the St. Anthony parishioners, but there has been no more explanation of why such a noted priest landed in a shrinking neighborhood parish.
Curtiss declined to be interviewed Friday about the parish's finances or about how he knows Stravinskas or why he brought him to Omaha.
In a May 2002 sermon, the archbishop praised Stravinskas as "a first-rate scholar with a rich academic background," and "a herald of truth in the church."
Curtiss delivered the sermon in New York City to mark the 25th anniversary of Stravinskas' ordination.
"Now that I am 70, I will be fortunate to be associated with you and your ministry for another decade," Curtiss said. "You are a special priest and a special friend to me and many people who really know you. I consider you a gift in my ministry and in my life."
In Omaha, Stravinskas registered the Priestly Society of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman as a Nebraska nonprofit, based at the St. Anthony rectory.
Stravinskas also hired a contractor to renovate parish buildings. Contractor Mark Warsocki said the priest paid him and others to do $126,000 in work.
In the church, Warsocki said, he installed a marble floor in the sanctuary, painted the ceiling and repaired the tabernacle area.
Stravinskas wanted to convert the rectory, a former convent, into a more comfortable residence for himself, Gregoris and a seminarian, Warsocki said. They felt cramped in 9-by-13-foot rooms where nuns once lived, the contractor said.
He built a three-room suite for Stravinskas, plus a library, in the rectory's unfinished basement.
Warsocki installed new flooring, a patio door, windows, a wine rack and a deck on the rectory's main floor, he said, and converted four second-floor sleeping rooms into two living suites with individual bathrooms.
Warsocki said Stravinskas also had hired him to create two more living suites. But Warsocki said Stravinskas stopped the work on Good Friday 2004, after the archdiocese audit. The contractor said he had $16,000 worth of labor left to do.
Warsocki described the work as needed and not lavish. He said Stravinskas had him buy materials from home improvement stores with the priest's personal credit card.
Warsocki said he undercharged because of inexperience and a desire to improve a parish where his grandfather and father had belonged.
Which one? There were two, one was converted to a mutual fund and money was withdrwan from that and transferred to the Archdiocese Bank several months before Father arrived.
May we have copies of the trust documents and the activity of both (including the one changed to a mutual fund) since 1996?
Let's get the truth out there. Make all the documents public.
I'm not sure who I should reply to so I just picked one. I've been a parishioner for going on 45 years now . I was baptized, went to school and participated in the parish events and functions ethnic or otherwise. I've been following this controversy over our present (temporary) administrator. Although I belong to 2 parishes at present because of my childrens educational needs, I still consider St. Anthony's my home parish. Now, I know EVERYONE thinks they have all the facts about all this, but I think we should leave it in the hands of the authorities who are investigating this case. When the investigation is completed I'm sure this whole thing will be resolved by the PROPER authorities not all of these self-made ones. I sympathize with the parishioners who have been members of this parish for years. Their money has disappeared and they are afraid of losing the parish. This is just my opinion.
The only reason this discussion is even taking place is because the media has insisted on and been fooled into presenting one side of the whole mess.
I have no problem discussing this in a public forum, but now that this has taken a direction that is not only irrelevant and false, but also evil, I am not going to participate in this anymore.
To do so would only give creedence to someone's personal demons.
You know where to find me.
YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just wondering --- What don't you agree with ?
You know all this how ????
Check your mail.
Your turn.
Published Sunday
May 29, 2005
Archbishop urges priest in financial investigation to leave
BY CHRISTOPHER BURBACH
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss has told a priest whose handling of a south Omaha parish's money is under police investigation that he should leave the Omaha Archdiocese.
Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss
The Rev. Peter Stravinskas remains temporary administrator of St. Anthony Catholic Church, 32nd and S Streets. But Curtiss has reported to a gathering of archdiocesan priests that he "suggested to Father Peter (Stravinskas) that he needed to locate in another diocese," according to minutes of the gathering.
Stravinskas, a noted Catholic author and defender of the faith's traditions, is not a priest of the Omaha Archdiocese. Technically, he is a priest of the Diocese of Boise, Idaho, although he has not served there for many years.
Curtiss brought Stravinskas to Omaha from Pennsylvania. As a priest from another diocese, Stravinskas serves at the invitation of the local bishop.
Curtiss declined to be interviewed. He said through the Rev. Gregory Baxter, chancellor of the archdiocese, that he would have no comment until after the Omaha police complete their investigation.
Reached by telephone at St. Anthony's rectory, Stravinskas declined to comment on Curtiss' report to fellow clerics or the police investigation.
The St. Anthony issue came up in a May 3 meeting Curtiss had with more than 20 archdiocesan priests. Curtiss' remarks about having told Stravinskas that he needs to locate in another diocese were included in meeting minutes that have circulated in the archdiocese. The minutes did not mention when Stravinskas might leave Omaha.
The minutes also said that Curtiss told the priests, "Internal audit suggests there was poor bookkeeping but no theft."
"The archbishop thinks that this matter will be dropped," the minutes said. "There are no criminal charges filed."
Jennifer Timmins, a member of St. Anthony's parish council who launched a Web site in his defense, said she didn't know if Stravinskas will leave but hopes he doesn't.
"Do we want him to leave? Absolutely not," Timmins said. "Do we think he's innocent? Absolutely yes. Father Stravinskas does what he preaches. He teaches solid Catholic doctrine and dogma, and he also provides the example. He's a good, holy Catholic priest."
For nearly two months Omaha Police Department detectives have been investigating other parishioners' report of alleged embezzlement of parish funds. Among other things, they served three search warrants March 30 on the St. Anthony's rectory and archdiocesan offices, seizing records and a computer, and gaining access to the computer's contents.
No charge has been filed.
Police declined to comment on the investigation except to say that it remains active.
Detectives served a fourth search warrant April 27 at Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Omaha.
A judge granted police access to records of a Wells Fargo account belonging to Newman House, a priests organization headed by Stravinskas, according to Douglas County District Court records.
In applying for the earlier search warrants, police had testified under oath that records showed money from St. Anthony's accounts appeared to have been used for Stravinskas' personal expenses, including travel, mortgage loan payments and private credit card accounts.
Aciu Dieviu!
See my post to Petskelis for an update on this article.
So where do both groups go to collect on your wager?
Oh is everything over?
Has the parish been declared righteous and vindicated?
Has the priest been declared guilty and disgraced?
That's not the sense I get from the article.
And I must say that some of the stories circulating on various grapevines that I'm in touch with paint quite an amusing picture of a couple of the "ladies" (ahem!) of the parish. Maybe you're one of them!
So my money is still on Fr. Stravinskas, and it ain't over till it's over.
It will be interesting to see where both Father Stravinskas and the parish are about a year from now.
I'm sure he'll be heartbroken to leave a vibrant ethnic parish, filled with loving and congenial Christians, in the thriving heart of Omaha - after having clawed his way up over the long line of talented and articulate and orthodox priests who were just begging to be made pastor there!
My guess is that he'll be flourishing somewhere and the parish will be a part-time mission, hatching, matching and dispatching nostalgic folks who come back when they feel like it, and serviced minimally by a priest who saw even a dead-end parish full of bitter nasties in the armpit of Omaha as at least better than having to go back to the old country.
Check your mail?
As in 'hate mail'?
From your loving friend in Iowa,
Midwestmom (not Jennifer!)
So, does anyone have any idea which priest gave the minutes of the meeting with Archbishop Curtiss to the press? Now there's a story. What kind of priest would do that? Maybe one who's threatened by Father Stravinskas' intellect and stature?
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