c. 2006 Religion News Service
Former Church Official Charged in Kickback Case
CLEVELAND (RNS) The former chief financial officer of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland used money from church collection baskets to pay for a Florida condo, his children’s tuition and a resort membership under a $784,000 kickback scheme, according to charges filed Wednesday (Aug. 16).
Joseph Smith was the highest-ranking lay employee at the diocese before he resigned in 2004. He was charged with 23 counts, including conspiracy, mail fraud, money laundering and obstruction, in U.S. District Court.
Anton Zgoznik, Smith’s friend and a former diocesan employee, was charged with 15 counts, including conspiracy, money laundering, mail fraud and obstructing.
Neither Smith nor his lawyer was available to comment on the indictment. Zgoznik’s lawyer, Robert Rotatori, said all of Zgoznik’s actions were approved by auditors and diocesan officials.
“He followed all of the directions,” Rotatori said. “He did nothing wrong except be a good soldier for the diocese.”
Much of the money passed between the men originally came from the 233 parishes that make up the Cleveland diocese.
Prosecutors said that from 1996 through 2003, Smith approved more than $17.5 million in inflated payments from the diocese to companies owned by Zgoznik. Some of the money, which was said to be for “consulting services,” was diverted to Smith and Zgoznik.
Zgoznik, 39, paid $784,000 in consulting fees to companies owned by Smith for work that was never done, prosecutors said.
Robert Tayek, spokesman for the Cleveland diocese, expressed sympathy for Smith. “We pray for a just resolution and for Mr. Smith and his family,” Tayek said.
Smith, 49, was suspended as CFO when the documents surfaced in January 2004. He eventually resigned but was hired months later as CFO for the Catholic Diocese of Columbus. A spokeswoman for the Columbus diocese said the bishop there was reviewing the charges.
_ Mike Tobin
Catholic Colleges Roll Out Programs in Church Management
(RNS) In response to a growing need for business skills in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, three Catholic universities are offering study programs in management and finance.
This fall, Boston College, a Jesuit university, will begin offering the nation’s first graduate program in church management, according to a news release from the school.
The program will include two options: a master’s degree in pastoral ministry with a concentration in church management, and a joint master’s in business administration/master’s in pastoral ministry.
“It is estimated that the Catholic Church does approximately $100 billion of business per year in the United States, much of it done by individuals with little formal training in management and financial practices,” the news release said.
The University of Notre Dame, whose business college has offered a master’s program in administration to leaders of religious orders since 1954, broadened the program last year to include training for other nonprofits as well, according to Catholic News Service.
Still, most of the students hold church or church-related jobs, the director of Notre Dame’s program told CNS.
Villanova University in Pennsylvania also got into the field in July, when it hosted a five-day Church Management Institute seminar. The institute was sponsored by Villanova’s Center for the Study of Church Management.
Boston College’s church management program was the brainchild of Thomas Groome, a theology professor at the school, who came up with the idea while attending a conference of business and church leaders last year.
“It was apparent that the business leaders did not fully understand the language of the church and the church leaders, including the bishops present, did not fully understand the language of business,” Groome said in a school news release.
“If we are to move beyond crisis to renewal, then it is essential that we train managers who are competent in both the theology and mission of the church and in the best practices of management,” Groome added.
_ Daniel Burke
Mel Gibson Gets Probation for Drunken Driving
(RNS) A Los Angeles judge on Thursday (Aug. 17) sentenced actor Mel Gibson, who unleashed an anti-Semitic tirade after he was stopped for drunken driving on July 28, to three years probation.
Under the plea agreement, the actor will attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, perform public service announcements and pay $1,300 in fines, according to news reports.
The actor allegedly made an anti-Semitic tirade after being pulled over for driving with a blood-alcohol level of .12 percent. The legal limit for drivers in California is .08.
Gibson allegedly called an officer a “(expletive) Jew” and said “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”
Gibson then asked the officer, “Are you a Jew?”
Since the outburst, Gibson has issued an apology and said he wanted to meet with leaders in the Jewish community.
“Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith,” Gibson said in the apology.
Gibson and father Hutton Gibson, who denied the Holocaust in a 2003 interview with The New York Times, belong to a traditionalist sect of Roman Catholicism that is outside the official Catholic Church.
Mel Gibson also drew heat from the Jewish community after his 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ” depicted what many critics thought were anti-Semitic stereotypes.
_ Kat Glass
Andrew Young Resigns Wal-Mart Post After Comments on Jews, Arabs
LOS ANGELES (RNS) Andrew Young, a former National Council of Churches president and onetime Atlanta mayor, has resigned his post as chairman of a Wal-Mart advocacy group after making negative comments about Jewish, Arab and Korean store owners.
Since February, the longtime civil rights leader and former United Nations ambassador has been doing outreach for Wal-Mart as chairman of its advocacy group, Working Families for Wal-Mart.
In an interview published Thursday (Aug. 17) in the Los Angeles Sentinel, Young was asked about mom-and-pop grocery stores in urban areas being forced to close by new Wal-Mart stores.
Young said mom-and-pop grocers in urban areas “are the people who have been over-charging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs; very few black people own these stores.”
Those comments brought swift condemnation from Jewish groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and also Wal-Mart, which on Thursday posted an online statement saying, “Ambassador Young’s comments do not represent our feelings toward the Jewish, Asian or Arab communities … we were outraged when the comments came to our attention. We also support his decision to resign from the post of chairman of Working Families for Wal-Mart.”
Rabbi Steve Jacobs, rabbi emeritus at the Reform synagogue Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills, Calif., appeared in the 2005 DVD documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.” In an interview, he said, “The people in the civil rights community and the African-American community have been very unhappy with him (Young) because he followed the money and signed up with Wal-Mart.”
“Now it’s not only about Jews; it’s about Asians and Arab-Americans,” Jacobs said. “And for a man with his position and power, after the Mel Gibson incident (of making anti-Semitic remarks during a recent drunken-driving arrest), he should have been super-sensitive.”
Young issued a statement Friday on Wal-Mart’s corporate Web site. “I recently made some comments about former storeowners in my neighborhood that were completely and utterly inappropriate,” he said. “Those comments run contrary to everything I have dedicated my life to. I apologize for those comments. I retract those comments. And I ask for the forgiveness of those I have offended.”
_ David Finnigan
Quote of the Day: Christian Author Connally Gilliam
(RNS) “The whole `Jesus is my boyfriend’ thing is gross. Jesus is not your boyfriend. I mean, he is the lover of your soul, but he’s not going to take you out on a date on a Friday night.”
_ Virginia resident Connally Gilliam, author of “Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn’t Expect.” Gilliam, who is single, was quoted by The Washington Times on how a single Christian could avoid being pigeonholed as a “Jesus is my boyfriend” woman.
KRE/PH END RNS
