Lawsuit Filed against Rev. Michael Rodriguez Called Look at Politics of El Paso Diocese

By Marty Schladen
El Paso Times
January 14, 2012

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19741694?source=most_viewed

[with pdf]

[with pdf]

The unusual step by Catholic Bishop Armando X. Ochoa of suing one of his priests exposed a small part of the inner workings of the church in El Paso and it offered a glimpse into the politics inside the diocese, experts said Friday.

By recovering $200,000 and shuttling the Rev. Michael E. Rodriguez off to Presidio, Ochoa might have tried to conceal that one of his priests allegedly misused parish money.

Or Ochoa might be publicly trying to rein in a renegade priest by suing Rodriguez over $27,000 Ochoa says hasn't been accounted for, an expert said.

Ochoa and Monsignor Arturo Banuelas this week asked that a court lock down Rodriguez's bank accounts and force him to make a full accounting of the funds he raised from parishioners at San Juan Bautista

Church.

The bishop contends that Rodriguez surrendered $200,000 after being confronted about discrepancies in parish finances, but is refusing to account for an additional $27,000. Rodriguez on Thursday denied the accusations, but he couldn't be reached on Friday.

The suit says Rodriguez raised funds from parishioners by telling them he wanted to remodel the church, in part so it would "comply with the ancient norms of the Roman Rite."

The suit alleges that Rodriguez also paid his brother for construction work, paid his sister to run a bookstore and made his mother the beneficiary of some of the funds in the event of his death.

An advocate of pre-Vatican II practices, Rodriguez performed Latin Mass while he still was in El Paso. Before 1962, Catholic priests said Mass in Latin with their backs to the congregation, necessitating different arrangements inside the church.

In a news release Wednesday, Ochoa said Rodriguez was removed as San Juan Bautista administrator on Sept. 20 because of financial discrepancies.

But in September, Ochoa said Rodriguez was moved to Presidio because he had become involved in an effort to remove Mayor John Cook and two other elected officials from office because of their support for health benefits for gay and unmarried partners of city employees.

Rodriguez has been adamant in his public statements that homosexuality is a sin, and a news release by the bishop said the priest's activities in the recall could jeopardize the diocese's tax-exempt status.

It also hinted at other troubles.

"Additionally, during the last 10 days, the Diocese of El Paso has received credible information and documents that show that Fr. Rodriguez failed to comply with diocesan policies that govern the administration of San Juan Bautista Church," the Sept. 21 news release said. The diocese did not respond at the time to requests to be more specific.

El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry on Friday said that the diocese has not filed a criminal complaint against Rodriguez.

Ochoa, Banuelas and Francis Ainsa Jr., the lawyer representing Ochoa in his suit against Rodriguez, did not return calls on Friday.

The Rev. Tony Celino, spokes man for the diocese, said he could not comment on why police were not called because the civil suit is ongoing. Asked why the alleged financial misdeeds were not made public sooner, he said the Sept. 21 news release addressed the issue.

Celino said that in his new post in Presidio, Rodriguez will not have access to parish funds.

"The diocese and the bishop acted properly when they transferred Fr. Rodriguez to Santa Teresa Parish in Presidio, Texas, because in his current assignment, he is assigned as parochial vicar and as such he does not enjoy any responsibility of administration, especially financial administration of the parish," Celino said in an email.

"The responsibility falls into the hands of the Parish Administrator, Fr. Jose Alfredo Hinojosa."

But by not disclosing Rodriguez's alleged mishandling of parish money when they sent him to Presidio, church officials have given a depressing reminder of a far darker chapter in the history of the diocese, said Leon J. Podles, author of the book "Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church."

Podles devotes the first chapter of his book to what he calls a ring of pedophile priests in the El Paso Diocese in the 1950s and 1960s -- and to Bishop Sydney Matthew Metzger, "who pre sided over one of the earliest known abuse cover-ups in the United States." When Metzger was told of priest abuse, he made excuses and kept the priests in their posts, the book says.

What Rodriguez is accused of is not nearly as grave, but the diocese acted similarly in his case, Podles said on Friday.

"When there's criminal activity, it should not be handled in secret," he said. "It's like an accountant who's stolen. He should never be given access to money again."

But that is no different from the way a business might handle a case of an employee misusing funds, said Timothy Matovina, professor of theology and director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame.

"It looks like (Ochoa) did everything he could to take care of this internally," Matovina said. "I don't see this as a pernicious act."

Just as a company might not want the public to learn that it has a dishonest employee, the diocese might want to keep it quiet that priests sometimes mishandle donations, Matovina said.

That knowledge might make parishioners hesitate to donate in the future, he said.

What Matovina found more striking is that Ochoa has now gone public in his attempt to bring Rodriguez to account.

"The point here is not the secrecy," Matovina said.

In his book, Podles writes that Vatican rules make it very difficult to defrock a priest against his will. Matovina said Ochoa appears to be doing what he can to make Rodriguez follow his rules.

"This is a story about clerical authority and how it operates," Matovina said, and added that keeping diocesan priests in line is part of Ochoa's job description.

"It's expected of the bishop; that's part of his job," Matovina said.

But Podles said that sending Rodriguez to Presidio after he allegedly misused funds in El Paso shows that church leaders still haven't learned from the past.

"As far as I can tell," he said, "there's no real change of heart."

Contact: mschladen@elpasotimes.com