Embezzlement Is Found in Many Catholic Dioceses

[question everything]

The New York Times

January 5, 2007
Embezzlement Is Found in Many Catholic Dioceses
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and STEPHANIE STROM

A survey by researchers at Villanova University has found that 85 percent of Roman Catholic dioceses that responded had discovered embezzlement of church money in the last five years, with 11 percent reporting that more than $500,000 had been stolen. The Catholic Church has some of the most rigorous financial guidelines of any denomination, specialists in church ethics said, but the survey found that the guidelines were often ignored in parishes. And when no one is looking, the cash that goes into the collection plate does not always get deposited into the church’s bank account.

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Officials at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said they had seen the study, which was released just before Christmas and was first reported in the National Catholic Reporter, and were considering ways that parishes could tighten their financial controls.

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Mr. Zech and his co-author, Robert West, a professor of accounting at Villanova, did not set out to look for embezzlement. They were conducting a study of internal financial controls in Catholic dioceses and sent a battery of questions to chief financial officers in the nation’s 174 Catholic dioceses; 78 responded. Mr. Zech said he was surprised that so many dioceses had detected embezzlement. In 93 percent of those cases, police reports were filed. He said the survey did not ask who stole the church money. But it did ask who detected the theft, and found that it was most often the parish priest, followed by the bookkeeper, an internal auditor or the parish finance council. In October alone, three large cases of embezzlement surfaced, including one in Delray Beach, Fla., where two priests spent $8.6 million on trips to Las Vegas, dental work, property taxes and other expenses over four decades.

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Most denominations have had cases of embezzlement, sometimes by top officials. In June, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. fired its second-ranking financial officer, Judy Golliher, after she admitted stealing money that church officials put at more than $132,000. Many nonprofit organizations that accept cash donations experience theft, and churches are particularly vulnerable, said John C. Knapp, director of the Southern Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

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The Salvation Army is widely considered exemplary among nonprofits in handling cash collections. The red buckets in which bell ringers collect donations are covered and locked, and all buckets must be returned to a central location, where at least two people count the number and type of bills, coins and checks, said Major George Hood, the charity’s national spokesman. The money must be deposited in the bank within 24 hours, and different people reconcile the initial tallies with bank records, Major Hood said.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/us/05church.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1168059600&en=eda95b78557f619d&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

[htuttle]

1. "Vegas, baby! Vegas!"

:eyes:

[DeSwiss]

2. Not to worry....