This story just keeps getting worse.
Yesterday KAST News reported that the Archdiocese of Portland had sent a memo regarding changes required in the operation of St Mary, Star Of the Sea Parish. Among those requirements: Father Prentice may not write a check on church accounts, his control over the finances was rescinded and placed in the hands of the local church financial council.
Apparently this directive has had little effect. The errant priest refuses to acknowledge the direction from the Archdiocese and reportedly has some anger issues that have been on display for quite some time. Real nice example for the children huh?
The church authorities have acknowledged that Ted needs some counseling. No kidding.
He has expressed himself multiple times in front of many witnesses with expletive laden raging. The Archdiocese told one concerned parishioner that someone would be sent to help with these anger issues but no one has seen anyone show up yet.
After some research into the non-profit reportedly set up by the Father and his longtime friend who masquerades as a Nun it seems that the contact numbers for making donations to that organization go to a home Ted apparently owns with the "Nun" in Portland.
Let's summarize, shall we?
So far we have a swearing priest who has terrorized those he can ,to maintain control;maybe as much as a half million dollars not where it's supposed to be; some local members of the Hispanic community throwing parties at the school until all hours and at at least on one occasion required the police to respond....
Oh yeah..Forgot to tell you about the Hispanic connection.
At one time a few years ago a local Hispanic group started up and they started showing up at community events and were a welcome addition to local volunteer efforts. They held regular meetings at city owned halls. Then all that stopped. Instead they began to use Star of the Sea school. It's not clear whether this is the same group, or just a collection of families that Father Ted brought to Astoria and, according to him, have been living in the housing at Emerald Heights while the parish has been paying the rent(s). It seems the good father wrote himself around $14,000 worth of checks and told those concerned members of the church council that the money went to pay those rents.
There have been multiple calls to the Archdiocese over these issues over the last four years.
While there are assurances that help is on the way it hasn't happened.
You may remember that several years ago another individual embezzled from the Star of The Sea parish. That resulted in people pulling their kids out of the school which rang up a big deficit.
It took several years and a dedicated core group to put things back on an even keel.
It seems that history does repeat itself.
Got to go. A reporter from FOX 12 in Portland just showed up.
This is one parent who won't be pulling her child, even though we struggle to make tuition, the education and staff there are so dedicated that we are extremely grateful to be able to send one of our children there. So I hope that other parents feel the same.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it's going to take years and lots of hard work (because we all didn't have other things to do) to put the wrong actions of one man right. It looks like we have to be the generation that takes responsibility for delivering this very wonderful school safely and in good health to the next generation.
And that is looking more and more difficult as each hour passes.
As a parishioner and a parent of a former Star of the Sea student, I cannot tell you how angry and heartbroken I am today as this story is unfolding. I can only imagine how the parents of current students now feel.
ReplyDeleteIt’s time for the Portland Archdiocese to take responsibility and at a minimum, place Ted Prentice on paid administrative leave pending a full audit of all financial information dating back to May 2005. In an interview with KATU, Bud Bunce of the Portland Archdiocese admits that there is up to $25,000 unaccounted for. What is not mentioned is that these missing monies are only from the time period of July 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. What about the other three full years Mr. Prentice has been solely responsible for the school and parish funds? If we do the math, and use $25,000 for each six month period, we could be looking at an additional $150,000 missing.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing is that a parish pastor may be able to spend money anywhere he see fit, and it might not be a crime. It is my understanding that in canon law, the parish pastor has absolute power within that parish. This includes deciding where to spend money. The interesting thing here is that the archdiocese has admitted, now publically, that Mr. Prentice has indeed spent up to $25,000 in a six month period and no one can show where the money went. They have said this is not “criminal”. The question then is do they condone these actions. I am going to guess no since he has been told he can’t sign checks. Last week there was a confrontation that was witnessed with a very agitated Mr. Prentice expressing his defiance to the archdiocese directive limiting his financial role and that he would continue to have access to funds. And in the archdiocese’s great wisdom, they choose to leave him here with full power, except he can’t sign the checks.
Is the bank going to check to see if he has indeed signed the check as they clear the account? The answer is no. The check clearing process is automated and most banks don’t even look at a check if it is under $5,000. But wait, two signatures are required for these checks to clear and that will deter him from continuing to write checks. Once again, the two signatures required is not an item the bank will catch if the checks are under $5,000. So if Mr. Prentice remains in the pastoral office, has already indicated his defiance to the thought he would loose control over the finances, how can the archdiocese even begin to explain to the families in Astoria that this is the right thing.
The really scary thing is that it goes beyond just the money questions. Since his arrival in Astoria, Mr. Prentice has blatantly disregarded the archdiocese’s proscribe procedures. The archdiocese has a procedure in place on what the relationship should be between the parish pastor, the school, and the school administrator. From the very beginning, Mr. Prentice has chosen to disregard this system and institute his own unilateral management of the school and its finances, yet at the same time, blaming other for the shortcomings of the school. The families in Astoria have been pleading with the archdiocese for three years to do something. Last fall, in a heated exchanged at a School Advisory Council meeting, Mr. Prentice announces that the archdiocese has asked him be to be reassigned. Instead of accepting this reassignment as a submissive subordinate should, he appeals his reassignment, not once, not twice, but three times. Archbishop Vlazny himself allows Mr. Prentice to stay. Once again the families of Astoria are ignored. In order to go above Archbishop Vlazny’s authority, the families here would have to contact the Pope.
So we have a priest who is defiant to the wishes of the archdiocese, has had unlimited power to run affairs of the parish and school, and now we are missing up to $25,000 in a six month period. This is bad and needs to be addressed by the archdiocese.
If these matters are not enough for the archdiocese to remove Mr. Prentice from his position all together after admitting on KATU that Prentice has been a strong contributor to the problems here, one only has to look at the relationship between Ted Prentice and this mysterious “Sister” Antonia Valdes. According to conversation with Prentice himself, these two individuals were engaged to be married. It was at this time Mr. Prentice sought a career in the priesthood. Now this “sister” who Mr. Prentice masqueraded as an official nun, does not have any credentials to be considered as one in an official capacity of the Catholic Church. However, the two of them did form the non-profit corporation Nuestro Futuro, Inc. in February 2003. This was more than a year before Mr. Prentice was ordained in the Catholic Church. Now it appears funds have been funneled from the parish and school to the “non-profit” that Antonia Valdes is the President. Questions for the Portland Archdiocese, did they know of this corporation and Mr. Prentices involvement prior to his ordination, and is it normal for a pastor to have a stand alone corporation that is used to distribute parish funds? These are questions the archdiocese must answer.
There will be those who say, it was only parish funds and not the schools. So why should I, a non Catholic, have a say. To that I say prove there were no school funds over the past three and a half years that were misappropriated for other causes. In my tenor as a Parent’s Club Officer, a member of the School Advisory Council, and Parish Finance Council, Mr. Prentice has actively consolidated the separate accounts into as few accounts as possible. For months on end there were no financial reports given to the school advisory council or finance council. There is not a live budget model to account for expenditure as expenditures happen. I do not believe anyone could say for sure that these missing funds were specifically from the parish and not the school. If they were school funds, this man stole from us. He stole from our children. The archdiocese needs to take action. If they don’t, the finance councils and school advisory councils through out the Portland Archdiocese better take a very solemn look at every new pastor that comes to town and ask yourselves, is this the one that will ruin everything we have worked so hard to create.
The other question that has to be asked is what does a pastor need to do to be removed. To date, Mr. Prentice has disregarded standard operating procedure, refuses to accept archdiocese decisions, is defiant to the archdiocese directives, established a whole shadow organization and kept it secret, funds are not account for, and his business partner in the non-profit is using a title with questionable credentials. In any other organization, he would have been shown the door a long time ago.
Archbishop Vlazny, please do the right thing and relieve Mr. Prentice of his position and authority in Astoria so we, the community, can heal.
Walt Postlewait
I am a lifelong Catholic and current parent at Star of the Sea and feel confused and betrayed by all this. I often wondered why our parish always seems to be the testing ground for newly minted priests. They should not be able to have such unlimited authority until they have proven themselves...and perhaps not even then. I am still missing our previous priest, Father Bill, who seemed so sweet and caring and genuine and wonder why it was so necessary to replace him so quickly with Father Ted? Why is it this way with the Catholic Church? We always have to accept the decisions and never have a say in anything. No wonder so many Catholics leave the Church.
ReplyDeleteThere is a meeting tonight, Monday night, at 6 p.m. at the school. We need to be there to ask the tough questions.
ReplyDeleteIn all my years of reading a myriad of newspapers, I’ve surmised that journalist do not report the news objectively but rather subjectively. Their reporting of events appears to be directly related to their perceptions, usually tarnished by their own backgrounds, i.e. emotional and/or mental baggage. Perhaps some reporters went into the profession in the hopes of fulfilling certain needs that went unmet in their earlier years. This is why reporting what’s wrong in the world or what’s wrong with “so and so” seems to take center stage in their lives. Rather than identifying their own needs or the needs of others, some journalists report their own distorted perceptions of the truth in the hope of connecting with others. In the case of Sandra Swain, it might be that she has a need to connect with the self-righteous, loud and sanctimonious group who are out to burn Fr. Ted at the stake due to “financial irregularities”. In all fairness, this same group might simply be needing clarity regarding their own financial contributions to a religious or educational system but because they are lacking in certain areas like couth, respect, due process, protocol, etc, their outward assertiveness seems vindictive and transparently cruel.
ReplyDeleteLately, I’ve been attempting to make sense of the recent controversy reported by Sandra Swain in The Daily Astorian regarding Fr. Ted’s “financial irregularities” stemming from charitable contributions to people in need. Let’s see if I can break this down.
Swain states that Fr. Ted allegedly had a non-sexual relationship with Antonia Valdes prior to becoming an ordained priest. According to Swain, Antonia Valdes is a woman who has devoted her mature life to religious service. She however does not have a “license” to spread God’s word; but she is a “consecrated virgin”. Moreover, prior to becoming a priest, Fr. Ted created a non-profit charitable organization named “Nuestro Futuro” with Antonia Valdes who is also the president of the organization.
Swain alludes that Fr. Ted’s personal life with Antonia Valdes prior to him becoming a priest hints that he is a scoundrel, financially and personally. Moreover, his motives for creating a non-profit charitable organization are disingenuous at best. Although Swain stipulates that according to Fr. Dave Gutman, who represents the Portland Archdiocese , the questionable, financial irregularities “were not used for (Prentice’s) personal use or gain”; but rather “the money went [to] help people Prentice knows personally who were in need.” Furthermore, even though Swain reports that these “irregularities” are being dealt with by the archdiocese, this is not good enough, especially on account of the “increasing volume of complaints by parents of students at the school as well as other parishioners”. Interestingly enough, I too have spoken with a multitude of parishioners and parents, and they all seem to think that the archdiocese is taking care of the matter. In fact, many of them have openly supported Fr. Ted and are appalled by the negative characterization by a few individuals who feel that somehow they are better at interpreting canon law and financial protocol.
There are other issues that Swain points out in her article. For example, Swain states that the nonprofit corporation Nuestro Futuro’s “principal place of business is the address of a house in Portland owned by Prentice’s parents.” Now this point is interesting. What is Swain’s rationale for reporting this? What is her intent? Is she also implying that Fr. Ted’s parents are also tied into the “financial irregularities” stemming from his financial contributions to people in need? Look, I for one need to honesty, integrity, clarity, etc. in my life. When I read articles that are soiled with innuendos, I have to take a stance. First of all, why is Swain so adamant about tarnishing Fr. Ted? For that matter, why are Postlewait and Howe so eager to slander Fr. Ted? Seems to me that Postlewait himself hints at his own ethnocentric agenda; quite frankly, Postlewait seems offended by the pigmentation of his fellow brethren at Star of the Sea. Moreover, Howe’s indignant reporting of Prentice’s alleged treatment of her friend Monica Steele, parish bookkeeper, is a bit suspect as well. What underlying issues does she have to deal with? She prays that Fr. Ted gets help. Now that statement sparks of insincerity at best. While at it, how is it that the school administrator at Star of the Sea just now learned of the monetary crisis at the school? If a “volume of complaints” is accurate, wouldn’t the dear Campbell know of the problem? Something sounds a bit off. It appears that Campbell needs to tune his story before he tunes his guitar because this melody is sounding flat.
Let’s recap. There has been some “financial irregularities” brewing at St. Mary’s. The archdiocese intervened and took the pot off the stove so things are cooling off. A few parents are still steaming on account that they need honesty, clarification, understanding, and reassurance that this financial situation is going to be remedied. Unfortunately, they don’t want to accept the archdiocese’s intervention plan. They rather tar and feather the priest along with our sister in Christ Antonio Valdes and run them out of town. Now, if we took this approach with every human being that got in a fix, earth’s population would be nonexistent.
In a nutshell, if you want honesty, ask for it. If you’re looking for integrity, stop slandering people and stating innuendos. Remember the tenets of Catholicism are based on integrity, honesty, kindness and forgiveness.