Spending at parish soars with new priest

WORLD-HERALD ^ | April 16, 2005 | CHRISTOPHER BURBACH

[Clemenza]

Ping!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Ping

[gbcdoj]

Cases like these show the need for parish financial councils, as mandated by Canon Law (537). Looks like Stravinskas may be able to explain what happened to the funds, but it's not a good thing at all to have to investigate, or to break the trust between a pastor and his congregation, even if there was no fraud...

[sinkspur]

Cases like these show the need for parish financial councils, as mandated by Canon Law (537).

Finance councils are a waste of time unless the Canon is updated to require two signatures on every check above a certain amount (say $10,000), and one of those signatures have to be from a lay member of the council.

This priest has virtually drained the coffers of a parish for his own benefit (a wine rack?). These "floaters" (guys ordained for one diocese but who move around from place to place) should raise red flags with bishops, but, for some reason, they don't.

[MarineMomJ]

Hmmm, this reminds me of a similar story.....oh, nevermind.

[gbcdoj]

That might be a good idea too.

There is absolutely no need to have any of these financial scandals; proper procedures could prevent almost all of them.

[GatorGirl]

Obviously, an investigation should be done, but it sounds like he did some renovations that perhaps were needed for some time.

We just built a new church and rectory to the tune of 1.4 million. It's not hard to spend alot of money when doing capital improvements.

The title makes this sound like the guy embezzled, but the article signals otherwise.

Who knows??

[te lucis]

Sounds eerily familiar, if you know what I mean.

[ancilla]

The facts:

There is a group of people at St Anthony's parish that has been trying to get rid of Fr. Stravinskas from day 1.

The parish books have been audited by an independent accounting firm hired by the archdiocese. They found no evidence of criminal activity. The archbishop has confirmed this personally to parishoners.

The world herald knows this but is extremely anti-catholic and jumps on any chance to attack Catholic priests.

There are several priests in the archdiocese office that want Fr Stravinskas to leave and they have been pressuring the Archbishop to do so.

The parish was dying and resembled an Eastern Bloc work camp before Father Stravinskas arrived. There was no permanent pastor and the parishoners were functioning as little more than a social club.

Don't rely on the media outlets in Omaha Nebraska to give you real story.

The ultimate blame lies with the archbishop for allowing this situation to fester to its current state.

[GatorGirl]

Thanks for the facts. It sounded that way to me, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions.

[MarineMomJ]

Yup, I think we're on the same page.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Dr. Jeffrey Bond traces him back to Scranton, PA where several other scandals began and spread outward (NJ).

Nice tagline.

[Coleus]

Happens all the time, local parishes need to be audited annually like any other non-profit organization.

[Concerned Catholic]

The Archdiocese own audit done March 2004 found many irregularities. The independent auditor refused to write an exoneration letter. The money was spent before these new parishioners arrived. We did have priests assigned, Father Sanderson was the last one before Stravinskas arrived.Anyone who disagreed with Stravinskas was threatened with a libel lawsuit. During today's homily he called the concerned parishioners evil lunatics! My, how Christian! This administrator does not even abide by Archdiocese rules so why wouldn't priests at the chancellery have concerns?

[Concerned Catholic]

What was the scandal in New Jersey?

[murphE]

I don't which tag line I like better, this one or your previous one!

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

A LONG story which resulted in three threads getting pulled on this site.

[murphE]

I don't know which tag line that is...sorry multi tasking