Catholic System Ineffective at Eliminating Clergy Theft

c. 2004 Newhouse News Service NEWARK, N.J. _ Catholic Church law has required since 1983 that every pastor appoint a committee of lay members to help set spending priorities and manage the parish’s money. But when the Rev. Joseph Hughes was allegedly taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from an off-the-books bank account at Holy […]

c. 2004 Newhouse News Service

NEWARK, N.J. _ Catholic Church law has required since 1983 that every pastor appoint a committee of lay members to help set spending priorities and manage the parish’s money.

But when the Rev. Joseph Hughes was allegedly taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from an off-the-books bank account at Holy Cross Parish in Rumson for his own use, he didn’t need to worry about being caught by a finance council looking over his shoulder.


He simply never appointed one.

The Catholic Church has been reeling for two years with revelations about clergy sex abuse. But critics say the arrest of Hughes last month, the disclosure this month of an investigation involving a former Morris County priest and investigations or trials of at least a dozen other priests nationally suggest the church has not done enough to address another scandal: the theft of parish funds by priests.

“I would guess that there have been many, many more priests that have abused parish finances than ever abused children,” said Maria Cleary, regional coordinator of the reform group Voice of the Faithful in the New Jersey dioceses of Paterson, Newark and Metuchen. “The church has never done enough to stop it.”

In the case of Hughes, authorities in Monmouth County allege he used money raised at golf tournaments and other charitable events to travel, dine and lavish a $57,000 BMW and other gifts on the young man who was the head of maintenance at the parish. Hughes has been free on bail since his arrest last month.

In the Morris County case, the prosecutor confirmed this month his office is investigating charges the Rev. William Naughton misappropriated money from Resurrection Parish in Randolph, where he was pastor for more than a decade. Parishioners say the amount of money is more than $500,000. Naughton has been on administrative leave since the money was found missing in 2001. The Paterson Diocese did not report the incident to the prosecutor until just a few months ago.

A 2002 survey by the National Federation of Priests’ Councils put the annual salaries of priests at between $15,291 and $18,478, plus benefits. That is less than the clergy make in most other denominations.

Clergy theft is not a uniquely Catholic problem. There are examples of religious leaders in other denominations stealing money donated by their flocks. Nor is church theft a uniquely clerical problem. There are examples in the Catholic Church and elsewhere of lay members who enrich themselves by abusing positions of trust.

But theft by Catholic priests is hardly rare. Nationally, there were at least a dozen other priests being investigated, charged, tried or sentenced for stealing parish money this year. Some took money from the collection plates; others took it from secret parish bank accounts. Some, as is alleged with Hughes, did it in the absence of oversight from a finance council; others did it even though a council was in place, as allegedly was the case at Resurrection.


Some were found out after getting caught in other criminal behavior. A Chicago priest was suspended in July after he was caught with a prostitute. Sunday collections shot up once he left the church, arousing suspicions he had been helping himself. He eventually agreed to repay $1.2 million.

Others were caught only after they aroused the suspicions of parishioners. In Florida, the Palm Beach Diocese began an investigation after a parishioner leery about his pastor’s spending habits went through his trash and found receipts and credit card bills.

“Every time people hear about a particular pastor committing fraud, it hurts all pastors and all parishes,” said Charles Zech, a professor at Villanova University who studies economics of religious organizations. “There will always be some folks who will be more reluctant to give money to the church.”

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Parish finance councils, which have been required since the church adopted a revised Code of Canon Law in 1983, have not been an effective check on the great financial autonomy Catholic pastors exercise, critics say.

Even though the councils are required by church law, not every parish has one. Marianna Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Paterson diocese, which includes Resurrection, estimated that one in four parishes in that diocese do not have functioning finance councils.

Audra Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trenton Diocese, which includes Holy Cross, did not know how many parishes had finance councils. She said it should be clear to pastors that they are expected to have them. Not only are they called for in church law, she said, but the diocese took the additional step of requiring them in a measure that was approved by a 1991 synod.


The discovery that there was no lay finance council in place at Holy Cross was disclosed in the same audit that found the missing money and led to Hughes’ arrest, she said.

The diocese audits parishes periodically, Miller said. Audits are done when a new pastor comes in, when a large capital project is undertaken or when there are complaints about possible improprieties, she said. Some parishes in the diocese are chosen randomly for audits. One thing auditors check is a parish’s finance council, she said.

The diocese tries to audit every parish at least once every three years. It had been longer since the last audit at Holy Cross, but Miller could not say how long. The audit that proved to be the downfall of Hughes was done because the parish planned to build a new church.

There was a parish finance council in place when Naughton was pastor at Resurrection. In fact, members of that group were the first to sound the alarm about missing money, the Rev. John Andrew Connell said during Mass last weekend when he told parishioners for the first time about allegations against Naughton.

That the money could go missing even with a finance council in place shows some of the weaknesses of the system, critics contend. Canon law has little to say about how the finance councils are supposed to operate. In many cases, the councils do only what the pastor asks. A pastor intent on stealing money and not getting caught is unlikely to ask his finance council to do much at all.

“Even in parishes where they have a finance council, they tend to meet very infrequently and perfunctorily, if at all,” said David Castaldi, an accountant who once served as chancellor for the Archdiocese of Boston and who is now a member of the board of Voice of the Faithful. “Months or years can go by in a parish without a … meeting because the members of the committee just don’t insist with the pastor.”


As part of the Voice of the Faithful’s efforts to force structural changes on the church in the wake of the sex abuse scandals, it is working on a set of principles it hopes will help standardize the operation of the councils and make them more effective watchdogs.

MO/PH/JL END FEENEY

(Tom Feeney is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

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