{"id":5433,"date":"2006-10-05T08:54:42","date_gmt":"2006-10-05T08:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/ignoring-the-signs.html"},"modified":"2006-10-05T08:54:42","modified_gmt":"2006-10-05T08:54:42","slug":"ignoring-the-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/ignoring-the-signs.html","title":{"rendered":"Ignoring the signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is important: a group of parishioners from St. Patrick’s in Palm Beach Gardens has gone public with documents showing that they repeatedly expressed their concerns about Fr. Francis Guinan’s handling of finances in their parish to the diocese.<\/a><\/p>\n

(Guinan was the guy that the long-time pastor, Skehan, brought into replace him at St. Vincent Ferrer upon his retirement. He was pastor at St. Patrick’s for several years.)<\/p>\n

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St. Patrick opened in 1987, with Guinan as its priest, in a spirit of camaraderie and optimism. It grew quickly from about 250 worshipers to 1,500 in 1991, when the parish began a campaign to build itself a church near Palm Beach Gardens.<\/p>\n

It was at this time that parishioners began to question Guinan’s use of their money. <\/p>\n

Suspicious parishioners began to investigate parish finances in 1992. They found Guinan had bought several pieces of property under his own name and in the name of SHAG, a for-profit, investment company he formed in 1984 with Skehan and another priest, Michael Hickey, state records show.<\/p>\n

Federal bankruptcy documents provided by the parishioner showed Guinan invested $85,000 with Palm Beach Gardens mortgage broker William Cartwright, a member of St. Patrick parish. SHAG invested $90,000. Cartwright declared bankruptcy in 1991 and went to jail in 1993 for defrauding investors of $2 million.<\/p>\n

Other financial records parishioners were able to collect suggested missing collection money and other discrepancies in the parish’s books, including the church building fund, all of which they contend amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. When they presented their concerns to Guinan, he refused to answer their questions.<\/p>\n

His unwillingness to address financial concerns at St. Patrick was to be repeated in 2003, when, as the new pastor of St. Vincent, he stalled a diocesan-ordered audit of the parish for eight months, police records show. Soon after Guinan arrived at St. Vincent, Skehan told a church employee that Guinan had stolen from St. Patrick parish, according to the police report.<\/strong>\u2022 <\/p>\n

Sal Gintoli, another of the original parish members, said in an interview that he was troubled by the cost of the church building, which escalated from $2 million to $3 million to $7 million. He left St. Patrick in July.<\/p>\n

"He turned off a lot of people," Gintoli said. "Sooner or later he had to get caught. There were rumors all over the place. The fact that there was no oversight surprised the hell out of me. Seems to me the bishop’s office should have had some control."<\/p>\n

After a year of no cooperation from Guinan, several parishioners took their complaints to Bishop Symons in 1994. The bishop spent two hours listening to two parishioners in his office.<\/p>\n

In June of that year, 18 parishioners sent a petition to the bishop, asking for an audit. They noted that six months of 1991 financial information was missing and that $200,000 collected for the building fund was not recorded.<\/p>\n

Guinan was furious. In a letter to Symons, a parishioner recounted a tempestuous meeting, during which Guinan said, "Well, you had your fun and stabbed me in the back," to which the parishioner retorted, "I came to you first."<\/p>\n

The meeting ended when Guinan dismissed the parishioners, telling them that they were "no longer in the parish."<\/p>\n

After receiving the petition, Symons assigned the Rev. Richard Murphy, diocesan vicar for pastoral services, to conduct an audit. Eight days after receiving the petition, Murphy wrote the parishioners.<\/p>\n

"There is no evidence of any errors or wrongdoings," Murphy wrote without any details of the audit.<\/p>\n

Murphy, who could not be reached for comment this week, also issued a warning:<\/p>\n

"I would suggest that this investigation should finalize the concerns and accusations of a small number of parishioners. If it continues, it becomes apparent that this is a witch hunt against Father Guinan which brings us to a very serious situation of the defamation of a person’s character…. I have known Father Guinan for about 30 years and he has always been a man of the utmost integrity \u2014 an opinion shared by the Bishop and priests of the Diocese and the vast majority of parishioners in any parish where he has served." <\/p>\n

In October 1994, hearing that Symons would be visiting St. Patrick, a parishioner wrote Symons, making one last attempt to clear the air in the troubled parish.<\/p>\n

"I hope that your plans include an open forum where the parishioners of St. Patrick have an opportunity to seek answers, from both you and the pastor…. We feel that reconciliation begins with honesty and truths, don’t you agree?"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On one level, it is astonishing that Skehan’s choice of Guinan to succeed him as pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer, one of the biggest parishes in the diocese, was approved in 2003, but on another level – not. The diocese has been in complete disarray, look at the personnel turnover during that period:<\/a><\/p>\n