> 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.
>
> "As a faith-based organization, we place a lot of trust in our folks,"
> said Chuck Zech, a co-author of the study and director of the Center
> for the Study of Church Management at Villanova.
>
> "We think if you work for a church - you're a volunteer or a priest -
> the last thing on your mind is to do something dishonest," Mr. Zech
> said. "But people are people, and there's a lot of temptation there,
> and with the cash-based aspect of how churches operate, it's pretty
> easy."
>
> Specialists in church ethics said they believed this was the first
> study to assess the extent of embezzlement in a denomination.
>
> 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.
>
> "The Villanova study does not come as a surprise," said Bishop Dennis
> M. Schnurr, treasurer of the bishops' conference. "This is something
> that the bishops in this country have been looking at for some time.
> They are aware of a need to look for mechanisms that can assist
> parishes in accountability and transparency."
>
> 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.
>
> In the survey, 29 percent of the dioceses reported thefts of less than
> $50,000.
>
> 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.
>
> "Churches have a tendency to be in denial about the potential for this
> conduct in their midst," Mr. Knapp said. "When ethics seminars or
> ethics codes are proposed in churches, they are often met with
> resistance from people who say, 'Why in the world would we need this?
> After all, this is the church.' Whereas in business, people readily
> recognize that this sort of thing can happen."
>
>
> Check NY Times for the rest of the article.