....And yet more!

This is a reprint from comments to my previous post. tf


It’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. The 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

For the benefit of those who do not have internet I will be broadcasting this post on Monday morning during our call-in program after news at 8am.tf