"Gambling probe targets N.Y. priest"

Source: San Antonio EXPRESS - NEWS, Monday, March 31, 2008.

"WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A New York Catholic Church official says th elong - serving pastor of a surbuban parish is under investigation for allegedly using church money to feed a gambling habit."

BUT HOW ABOUT HERE IN BRACKETTVILLE?

"The chancellor of the Archdiocese of New York says Father Patrick Dunne of Our Lady of Sorrows Church in White Plains took a significant amount of church money and has been permanently removed from the parish."

BUT OUR ARCHDIOCES CAN'T DO ZIP IN BRAKCETTVILLE!

Example, let's call what follows:

"$600.00 up in smoke in 3 weeks!"

One typical over - sixty St. Mary Magdalene's Catholic Church member was so unwise as to make six(6) consecutive $100.00 donations in three ( 3) weeks, that's $200.00 each weekend, $100.00 in a properly fill - out temporary offering envelope for the Saturday's PM Mass, and one $100.00 in a properly filled - out temporary offering envelope for the Sunday 8:00 am Mass.

The first one is cash: five(5) $20.00 bills in a properly filled - out temporary offering envelope, the rest money orders, the stubs of three of which have so far been recovered and copies of them FAX'ed to Brackettville Bank and Trust and to Archbishop Gomez himself.

The President of Brackettville's Bank and Trust doesn't like all this and writes us saying so, heh, heh!

Knowing what's at stake, Archbishop José Gomez's office is strangely quiet. Period.

There's nothing to indicate these generic offering envelopes and the money contained were ever logged in in the first place, when they would have been received, during the brief period from late October to early November, 2007.

Instead, the pastor personally gave us a predictable blow - off answer is his usual fractured English in a face to face meeting around mid - December, 2007, at the rectory of St. Mary Magdalene's Catholic Church, right here in Brackettville, Texas.

Me priest! Me no look'em, find'em!

With due allowance for some artistic license, our fearless pastor's reaction to our questions about the matter ran somewhat along these lines:

Me priest! Me no look'em, find'em! Call Sistah Suzie here at rectory! Give magic numbah! Sistah Suzie give you confidential information!

This went on for three repetitions, simply because everytime we attempted to explain the obvious limitations of the "magic numbah" scenario, our pastor firmly brushed them aside as of no interest nor importance ot himself.

By contrast, like between this attitude of moral turpitude on the part of our own pastor, and that of an attitude of honesty and responsibility on the part of the pastor of a non - American Catholic church, we have our Baptist friends and neighbors as a shining example.

After attending three months of Bible 101 Studies every Sunday evening last fall at one of Brackettville's Baptist churches, we were amazed to receive, unsolicited, a detailed report of all the itty - bitty $5.00 cash donations we'd made most likely every week to off set our use of the Reverend's materials, again in a plain, generic offering envelope, the kind you'll find stuck in and there among the benches and pews.

With the Baptists, at least, it seems there's a healthy sense of personal responsibility, that is apparently these days at least, not unfrequently lacking in our wayward Catholic pastors! No matter if they're pastors of New York parishes, or Texas parishes, what say??!!