So much for the benefit of the doubt...

So, I had planned on blogging just a tiny bit tonight before leaving for the Bay Area for Christmas, and had expected a nice piece about Advent waiting. That might still ensue, if I am not too jet-lagged and have internet access tomorrow.

But today's Boston Globe has me just a little bit, well, waiting for the kingdom again, as it were. When I wrote some time ago about the removal of Fr. Walter Cuenin from his parish in Newton due to financial impropriety, I was upset at the use of a technicality by the diocese in what seemed to be an act of reprisal due to his positions on a number of controversial church issues. At the same time, I was really, really trying to give the archdiocese the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were just trying to keep everyone on the same page? Maybe it was simply that the diocese was trying to crack down on any financial impropriety...

But in today's paper, one finds this lovely story about Fr. Hugh O'Regan, who over the past six years has been funneling money from one parish that he serves at to another. He will face no disciplinary action. His parishioners at Holy Trinity never knew about the money transfers -- or their parish's overall financial health -- because he never convened a finance council for the parish. (Incidentally, this is the one parish institution involving lay people required by canon law to exist in a parish...there's no absolute requirement for a parish to even have a parish council, but according to canon 537, there is to be a finance council...). While it might be nice to think that this is "an honest bookkeeping mistake," as the archdiocesan spokesperson described it, I'm honestly flabbergasted at the double standard here. Apparently financial irregularities only get you removed from a pastorate if your pastoral council knows about them, approves them, and regularly reports them to the parish. If you keep your parishioners in the dark (or happen to host the archdiocese's Latin Mass?), little things like playing with the numbers aren't really a problem. I can only hope that more people start pointing out the ridiculousness of this rather than just letting it slide.