Priest Accused in Attack Brought in to Heal Rift over Previous Pastor
By Brian Haynes
Review-Journal
February 18, 2007
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-18-Sun-2007/news/12656978.html
Long before the Rev. George Chaanine was accused of attacking a church singer and spent a week on the run, he was tapped to heal a simmering rift among the flock at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church.
Bishop Joseph Pepe, the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas, named Chaanine administrator at the church, hoping Chaanine could bring parishioners together after months of acrimony and infighting over the previous pastor, who had resigned amid accusations of financial misconduct and physical abuse against two boys.
Chaanine seemed to be on the right track, until the evening of Jan. 26, when singer Michaelina Bellamy emerged from the church offices, bloodied and dazed.
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| The Rev. George Chaanine Accused of attacking church singer, spent week on the run Photo by K.M. Cannon |
She told police she was attacked, hit in the head with a wine bottle, sexually assaulted and nearly choked to death. She told them the attacker was Chaanine.
After getting over the shock, parishioners shook their heads and wondered if their church ever would return to normal.
"It's just another sad chapter in an ongoing saga," lawyer and longtime parishioner John Hunt said.
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| Bishop Joseph Pepe Head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas Photo by K.M. Cannon |
The Chaanine incident was the final straw for some parishioners, who pulled their children from the church school or left the church altogether.
Pepe, who leads the roughly 600,000 Catholics in the Las Vegas area, has named the Rev. Tony Vercellone to lead the church, hoping once again to heal the troubled parish and bring peace to one of the oldest and wealthiest Catholic communities in Las Vegas.
"This is not what being a Catholic should be about, embezzling money, abusing kids, beating up women," said Michele Maras, who is debating whether to pull her two daughters out of the school after jumping through hoops to get them in about a year ago. "I say shame on the people who have been there all these years and covered their eyes to it."
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| Parishioners at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church wonder if it will ever return to normal. The Jan. 26 incident involving the Rev. George Chaanine was the final straw for some, who pulled their children from the church school or left the church altogether. Photo by K.M. Cannon |
Signs of discord within the church, on Alta Drive near Rancho Drive, first surfaced four years ago when members of the church's sizable Filipino community staged weekly protests outside the church.
They were calling for the removal of the Rev. Robert Petekiewicz because of what they felt were insulting articles published in the church bulletin, the unexplained removal of some parishioners from church activities and other complaints, according to news reports.
Petekiewicz survived the controversy, but more trouble brewed behind the scenes.
In early 2005, Sarah Flummerfelt, the church bookkeeper, started noticing "improprieties in donations and other funds" being collected by the church, according to a lawsuit she filed in May against Petekiewicz, the diocese and others.
Flummerfelt and her husband, Robert, who oversaw religious education at the church, say Petekiewicz retaliated against them because they refused to ignore the financial misdeeds, the lawsuit said. They no longer work at the church.
School principal Richard Martinez, who is also a plaintiff of the lawsuit, said Petekiewicz also retaliated against him because he wouldn't ignore the financial improprieties. The retaliation included removing Martinez from the parent-teacher organization and stripping him of his responsibilities, the lawsuit said.
Some parishioners had suspected financial problems for some time and were troubled by how church finances were treated like national secrets.
"We didn't have a right to know anything," said a longtime parishioner and mother who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Everything was secret, and we didn't have a right to know anything as parishioners and parents. Our children were there. Why don't we have a right to know?"
She and others also were bothered by the constant pleas for money from the pulpit.
"You know when you're being squeezed, and people just started to feel it," the parent said.
But the diocese said it was Petekiewicz that brought attention to potential financial misconduct.
"When Father Petekiewicz called for a Diocesan audit, the bookkeeper, a plaintiff in the civil case, walked out the day before the auditors arrived and backup documentation for some of her transactions could not be found," the diocese said in a written statement.
After the audit the diocese asked both Petekiewicz and Martinez to resign because the audit "results which raised concerns about management and oversight were determined unacceptable by the Diocese," Pepe wrote in a Feb. 23, 2006, letter to parishioners.
Petekiewicz resigned and left the church in June, and the diocese did not renew Martinez's contract after the 2005-06 school year.
"Once you get into conflict and all kinds of issues of dispute and unsettledness in the parish, the message gets drowned," Pepe said in an interview last week. "The best decision is to say let's start with new people to do the work and to continue what should be a thriving parish."
News that Martinez would be gone angered parents who felt that under his leadership the school never had been better.
"When we got wind of that, we went ballistic," said Carolyn Pope, who since has left the church in frustration.
Some parents banded together and wrote letters to Pepe pleading to keep Martinez as principal. They also started a petition and gathered a couple hundred signatures backing up the popular principal.
"I don't think there was one person who wanted to see the departure of Mr. Martinez," said Steve Miller, a former Las Vegas city councilman who sends his son to the school.
The parents grew frustrated, however, because they felt their pleas were ignored.
"The diocese was stone silent," Miller said.
Some parents didn't sign the petition and others asked for their names to be removed for fear of retaliation, he said. Those fears turned out to be justified as the parents who supported Martinez were given notices that their tuition would be doubled to the non-parishioner rate, Miller said.
The church leadership later backed off that stance and allowed the parents to pay the parishioner rate.
But the damage had been done.
The mother who requested anonymity said the school hasn't been the same since Martinez's departure.
"There is just a big void at our school," the mother said. "Our teachers don't have much direction, which trickles down, and our kids don't have any direction."
The Flummerfelt lawsuit, which is pending in District Judge James Bixler's courtroom, also claims Petekiewicz physically assaulted two students, including the Flummerfelts' teenage son. They claim Petekiewicz pinned Robert Flummerfelt Jr. on a table and held a knife to his throat, according to the lawsuit.
The diocese said in a statement that Las Vegas police investigated the allegations of physical assault and found them to be unsubstantiated. The statement also noted that the Flummerfelts did not report any assault until months later and only after Petekiewicz "questioned the monetary transactions involving certain employees, including some of those suing the Diocese."
After Petekiewicz's resignation in June, the diocese promoted Chaanine to administrator at Our Lady of Las Vegas. The interim position gave Chaanine the responsibilities of running the church.
Parishioners welcomed the change, and the mudslinging that divided the church started to subside. Although Chaanine seemed to be handling the responsibility, an incident during a baptism in November seemed to foretell simmering problems, Pope said.
During the baptism Chaanine was quick to anger and yelled at parents for talking during the ceremony, she said.
"He was on edge, very short, very irritated. Definitely not in his character," Pope said.
Two months later Chaanine was on the run, a fugitive from justice wanted on charges of attempted murder, sexual assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
"He had to have flipped out, truly flipped out," said the Rev. David Casaleggio, who was the pastor at Our Lady of Las Vegas for six years before Petekiewicz took his place.
Casaleggio, who now runs the prison ministries, said the church can overcome the months of turmoil, but only by being upfront to its followers, he said.
"The only way the parish can move past this ... is to be honest," Casaleggio said. "You can't explain this stuff away."
Dr. Adelaida Aranas, a parishioner since 1980, was optimistic.
"This is just trials," she said. "God will see us through this."
But some parishioners already have given up.
Pope, who grew up Catholic, drifted away and returned when her first child was born, reluctantly left the Catholic Church altogether last summer following the controversy over Martinez's dismissal.
"I wanted to be Catholic, but I want to know the diocese supports its people and will lead us in the right way," Pope said.
The mother who requested anonymity said she knew four families who left Our Lady of Las Vegas, pulled their children from the school and don't plan to find another Catholic school.
"I'm going to find another school, but those other four people aren't," she said. "It's sad. You're just driving people away."
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