Amid Accounting
Inquiry,
a Greenwich Pastor
Resigns
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA,
NYTimes on the Web, January 22, 2007
The pastor at St. Michael the
Archangel Church in Greenwich, Conn., resigned after an investigation found that
he had maintained secret bank accounts with church funds and could not document
how he spent more than $500,000 from those accounts, church officials said
yesterday.
Officials of the Diocese of Bridgeport said that the priest, the Rev. Michael R.
Moynihan, violated rules for handling money and misled church officials about
his actions. They are still investigating the matter.
Bishop William E. Lori asked for and received Father Moynihan’s resignation at
St. Michael, though the priest remains employed by the diocese, officials of the
diocese said. They said that they had not involved law enforcement in the
matter. Father Moynihan could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The church inquiry involving Father Moynihan, first reported yesterday in The
Advocate of Stamford and Greenwich Time, follows a scandal last year involving
the Rev. Michael Jude Fay, a former pastor at St. John’s church in Darien.
After an audit commissioned by the diocese, Father Fay was accused of spending
$1.4 million in parish funds on himself. He resigned last May without
publicly commenting on the claims.
Officials say the case of Father Moynihan does not appear to be nearly as
serious. At this point, Father Moynihan is being accused only of not
following accounting rules, officials said.
“I think it’s important to draw a very sharp distinction,” Bishop Lori said.
Unlike Father Fay, Father Moynihan “was pastorally engaged at every level,” he
said, and at least some of the undocumented spending appears to be legitimate.
Father Moynihan, 54, a priest in the Roman Catholic diocese since 1979, served
as pastor of St. Michael, one of the wealthiest parishes in the region, for 14
years.
Church officials said that in February 2004 they completed a routine review of
St. Michael’s finances and its official bank account. Seventeen days
later, they said, Father Moynihan opened a second account not shown on the
parish books. That act, the diocese says, violated its rules against
having multiple operating accounts for a parish and against off-the-books
accounts. The diocese also contends that Father Moynihan disregarded
instructions from the 2004 review to hire an accountant, keep invoices on all
payments, and not make checks out to cash.
As a result of the Darien scandal, the diocese decided last June to audit all 87
parishes in Fairfield County, starting with St. Michael and six others. In
July, officials say, they received a tip about a secret second account at St.
Michael — a tip from “civil authorities” whom they would not name.
The diocese hired the auditing firm Grant Thornton to investigate, and it found
that $1.374 million had been spent from the off-the-books account, said Joseph
McAleer, communications director for the diocese.
Auditors found no documentation for $529,000 of that spending, including
$185,000 in checks made out to Father Moynihan, to cash and to his personal
credit card accounts — which the diocese says violated rules against commingling
of personal and church funds. According to Bishop Lori, Father Moynihan
has defended the spending to church officials, and members of the parish council
have supported his explanations in some cases; the investigation continues.
During the audit, Father Moynihan assured the diocese that there were no other
hidden parish accounts, but another one was discovered in December, officials of
the diocese said. Officials said that an investigation of that account was
still going on but that they found payments from that account, too, to Father
Moynihan.
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