Hopefully there is some other explanation:
Even the pope called him "Father Sam," as he was known to the thousands of alcoholics and drug addicts he helped at a rehab center in Akron, Ohio, over the past 40 years. But federal law enforcement officials say the Rev. Samuel Ciccolini has a secret stash of cash and have charged him with making over $1 million in bank deposits to avoid government reporting requirements and with filing a false tax return.
Ciccolini, 66, stepped down Wednesday as executive director of the Interval Brotherhood Home that he founded in 1970 near the rough South Akron neighborhood where he grew up. He was not available for comment, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
Federal prosecutors say Ciccolini deposited $1,038,680 from April to June 2003, making 139 separate cash deposits at branch banks in the area. There was no indication where the money came from.
The rehab center received $4.1 million in financing this year, the Beacon Journal reported.
Father Sam has been a much beloved figure in the Akron community. In 2000, he received an audience with Pope John Paul II, who praised his work.
"Father Sam, God bless you," the pope said to the priest, according to Beacon Journal columnist Diane Evans. "You do the work of Christ."
Either way, is there even any question anymore that this institution is a hotbed of sociopaths?
1 comment:
There's embezzlement in every organization. What about the corporate assistant that pilfers petty cash or makes out checks for fictitious debts? The Church is large enough to contain all sorts of malfeasance.
I wouldn't take this example as another big notch on the clergy corruption scale. What's tragic here is Fr. Sam's exploitation of a rehab center and its patients.
At this moment I'm more concerned with the Holy Office's decision to lump all sorts of grave offenses in with sex abuse. Educated Catholics know that the delict attached to the simulated ordination of women is in an entirely different class than sex abuse offenses. Try telling that to a media that's willfully blind to these distinctions.
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