Episcopal Press and News

Brooklyn's Diocesan Treasurer Sacked for Stealing US $1.1 million

Episcopal News Service. June 26, 1996 [96-1507T]

(ENI) A "trusted employee for more than 32 years" of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn "diverted" $1.1 million of church funds to her personal bank account, the church recently announced. The Diocese of Brooklyn announced at a press conference that Vincenza Bologna, a member of a Brooklyn parish who had been promoted to manager of the lay pensions office in 1990, had taken sums ranging from a few hundred dollars to $35,000. Bishop Thomas V. Daily of Brooklyn, personally attended the press conference to assure retired employees that their benefits were not at risk. The Brooklyn diocese is seeking compensation from its insurers, and is asking for restitution from Bologna. Diocesan officials said the embezzled funds came from office operating funds, not the invested pension reserves. Thomas V. Doyle, a priest who was Bologna's supervisor, said that Bologna normally went through bank statements before he saw them, and replaced the checks in question with photocopies of a bank report stating that checks had been accidentally destroyed. In this way Doyle did not see that Bologna had endorsed checks to her own account.