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.
Do you mean to say that nobody at St. Anthony's knelt for the 50 years prior to Father's arrival? Honey, I'm 36 and every Catholic in the United State knelt for Communion until I was about 10 years old.
And, again, the priest can distribute Communion in the approved form that he prefers. Your real problem is with authority and learning to submit to it. I'm referring to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church here, not Father.
You again?
I'm still waiting for that shred of proof that Father was "kicked out" of the Diocese of Scranton. I thought maybe you had been gone so long because you were digging it up for me.
Maybe you haven't heard. They're the only two priests in Father's priestly society.
BOTH !!!!!!!!!
I don't go around looking to see what people drive.
Read it again. Their tradition and the way they were taught was kneeling, not standing because he wants to have a marble floor so people can't kneel.
Funny, they weren't considered a mob until the temporary administrator and you guys showed up. The parish was just fine until then. All we wanted was a parish priest, preferably of Lithuanian descent who would administer to the needs of our parish. This guy comes in and administers to his own needs (money, comfortable housing, travel, etc.) at the expense of the parish. You're right WHEN he leaves we will probably have no money and the archdiocese will be forced to close the parish because of a lack of funds and you and your wonderful leader will move on. Thanks alot !!!!!
Angelas didn't slip up--I came in on this conversation after reading most all of the posts.
Do any of you know a Mary McDermott?
And whatever happend to "Concerned Catholic"?
No, I don't.
Palladin,
I reported your post as abuse. I will also direct Father's attorneys to this post. It is libelous and you should be prosecuted. We'll see who the real criminal is.
Pastas
Mail call
Mail call
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