America:Parishioners at St John's Roman Catholic church in the Connecticut town of Darien were feeling relieved this week after their former parish priest, Michael Jude Fay, pleaded guilty to stealing parish funds to support a lifestyle more appropriate for a Medici pope than a provincial pastor.
Prosecutors say that Fay, who could face up to 10 years in prison, stole up to $2.5 million (€1.8 million) from the parish, spending much of it on designer clothes, Cartier jewellery, dinners at smart restaurants and a condominium in Florida.
Fay claims that he only stole between $400,000 and $1 million, much of which was funnelled through accounts called the Bridget Fund and the Don Bosco Fund, and he described his actions to the judge this week.
"It's my understanding, your honour, that I used church monies, parish monies for means and for needs other than means and needs of the parish or the parishioners of the parish. My understanding is that it's by fraud," he said.
That was also the understanding of the Bridgewater diocese when they found out that Fay used church credit cards to buy his clothes at Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, to stay at the Ritz Carlton, Hotel De Paris and the Four Seasons, and to spend $130,000 on limo rides for himself and his mother.
During a single week in 2005, the 56-year-old priest spent $2,800 at Cartier in New York, $2,300 at the Polo store in Philadelphia, $1,400 on designer men's wear at the Ermenegildo Zegna Boutique in New York, $1,200 at the Tumi luggage store on Madison Avenue, and $473 on tickets to the Broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Parish funds also paid for Fay's holidays, including one in Ireland, as well as trips to Italy, Spain, France, St Thomas, Puerto Rico and Jamaica between 2000 and last year.
Fay was rumbled after the parish bookkeeper became uneasy about his stonewalling of questions about credit-card bills, and another priest in the parish hired a private detective to check up on him.
The detective, Vito Colucci, said Fay's spending was so blatant that the diocese could easily have exposed him itself.
"There was a total lack of accountability. This guy got brazen because he knew the diocese was not going to do anything about it.
"At any time from 1999 to 2006, any diocesan official could have checked the parish books and found something wrong," Colucci said.
Fay bought the Florida condo with his friend Clifford Fantini, a Philadelphia wedding planner also known as Clifford Martell.
The two men deny that their relationship was romantic, although some parishioners assumed that Fantini was the priest's partner, partly because he stayed at the presbytery so often and sometimes used the parish office as his own.
Early last year, the two were pictured in Philadelphia Style magazine, answering the question, "Where was your most romantic Philadelphia dining experience?"
Fantini told the New York Times this week that Fay didn't mean to do wrong but, finding himself in a well-heeled parish, was just trying to live up to social expectations.
"I truly do not see him as a thief. I simply see him as someone who was guided and taught: 'This is what you do. You're in the town of Darien. You have to entertain certain ways in order to bring money to the church.' There's an expectation of lifestyle in a community. They expect lavish parties. They expect nice gifts," he said.
Leo Moscato, who was Fay's personal chef at St John's in the early 1990s, agreed that Fay was a "great fundraiser" who brought in a lot of money for the parish and the diocese.
Describing the parish as "a dump" before Fay arrived, Moscato said the priest had improved it with his good taste and flair for decorating.
After cooking for numerous priests in the area, Moscato concluded that there was nothing particularly lavish about Fay's tastes.
"Go audit every priest in the diocese," he said. "You'd be shocked where they eat."
