{"id":8079,"date":"2004-01-24T07:51:26","date_gmt":"2004-01-24T07:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/friends_say_priest_was_betrayed.html"},"modified":"2004-01-24T07:51:26","modified_gmt":"2004-01-24T07:51:26","slug":"friends_say_priest_was_betrayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/friends_say_priest_was_betrayed.html","title":{"rendered":"Friends say priest was betrayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

35 marijuana plants – a simple misunderstanding<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rev. Richard Arko is known as a gentle man – a vegan, yogi and massage therapist. He also takes in strays – animals and people.<\/p>\n

His friends believe his trust was betrayed by the most recent recipient of his giving nature, an unemployed man he allowed to live with him in the rectory next to Prince of Peace Church. That man, Jensen Powell, and Arko were arrested Wednesday after police found 35 marijuana plants growing in a closet in a spare bedroom. <\/p>\n

\n“Father Rick takes a lot of risks with people who are not the cream-of-the-crop characters,” said Cathie Finn, director of Barberton Area Community Ministries, which Arko helped found in 1997. “I wouldn’t be surprised if his trusting attitude is involved here.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

35 marijuana plants – a simple misunderstanding The Rev. Richard Arko is known as a gentle man – a vegan, yogi and massage therapist. He also takes in strays – animals and people. His friends believe his trust was betrayed by the most recent recipient of his giving nature, an unemployed man he allowed to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFriends say priest was betrayed - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/friends_say_priest_was_betrayed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friends say priest was betrayed - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"35 marijuana plants – a simple misunderstanding The Rev. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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