More On Fr Catania's Removal In Omaha

My regular correspondent discovered a video report from the St Barnabas finance committee that was put up on the parish website just before Christmas last year, outlining what was being done in what the committee (and presumably the parish laity) had come to recognize was a financial crisis. The video has since been removed from the parish website. UPDATE: You can find it on this page if you click on the small link below the title.

The report strongly suggested that there'd been a pattern of unauthorized expenditures, which the committee had been moving to correct, although the implication seems to have been that whatever measures the committee had been taking hadn't been supported. (As someone who's served as a parish treasurer, it's hard for me not to conclude that there was an authorized signature for parish accounts who should not have been. The pastor, in any denomination, is not normally an authorized signature on business accounts.)

The video concluded by saying the finance committee planned to "reach out to the chancery in January". It appears that they did this. I asked a knowledgeable visitor if the initiative for Fr Catania's removal came from the parish, not the chancery. He replied,

I’m told the Finance Committee was behind the ouster. They spent the better part of a year cutting spending, including on the priest, but didn’t receive much cooperation from Father Catania in terms of fundraising. The frustration with Catania’s inaction just kept growing as time went on. Once the Ordinariate business manager visited in January and saw how dire things were, the process moved pretty swiftly. Given his record in Baltimore, in Canada, and now in Omaha, Catania just doesn’t seem to be a gifted administrator. I have to wonder if it’s really his fault - was he trained to be one before being ordained a Catholic priest? Or are these guys just imported, scrubbed off, and set loose?

Via my regular correspondent, the business manager is Dcn Arthur Stockstill, an older man, formerly a financial analyst with Fidelity Investments and then a senior analyst with the Bank of America. He seems to be doing an effective job. A few weeks ago, a visitor forwarded this letter from Fr Lewis at Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio (Click on the image for a larger copy):

His comment:

Last week, Fr Lewis put out a release stating that the Bishop came to do a review of the office and as a result, several changes were made. The thing about these changes is that they are basically reversing organizational shifts made by Fr Lewis. Whereas Fr Lewis’ approach seemed to be to hire his way out of the mess, even turning down volunteers that wanted to help. Someone must have finally identified that approach as being unsustainable. Took 3 years to figure out.

It appears that when prompted, the chancery can move effectively to resolve issues -- though these issues seem only to surface when they're out of control. Dcn Stockstill has my best wishes.

Since becoming Catholic and seeing what deacons do, I have a great deal of respect for them.