PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Daily News
RONNIE POLANECZKY, DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST
POSTED: Sunday, November 2, 2014
THE BANISHMENT of the Rev. Thomas Chang Soo Cho back to South Korea is meant to heal a Catholic community divided by gossip and fear.
But it can’t happen unless those in Cho’s community summon the will to behave like the Christians their faith calls them to be.
Everyone was excited when Cho arrived in August 2013 from Seoul, South Korea, for a five-year stint as pastor of St. Augustine Lee Kwang Heon Catholic Community.
Part of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the 250-member community holds services in the basement of Holy Cross Church in Springfield, Delaware County. It also rents the rectory, where Cho lives, which is attached to a big community room.
Cho replaced a pastor who was beloved, but left some members hungry for more spirituality.
So they were delighted when Cho, 60, began offering Bible classes that drew as many as 100 participants. He also arranged pilgrimages to the Holy Land (everyone paid their own way) so parishioners could walk where Jesus once did.
“He made our faith feel alive,” says parishioner Jongtaek Park.
But early on, Cho noticed gaps in the parish’s finances. Tens of thousands had been paid in reimbursements to church members whose expenses were not validated with receipts. Weirdly, the amounts were in round numbers: $250 here, $1,000 there.
And records showed that the total collected in church offerings didn’t always make it into the church’s bank account. No one could account for the discrepancy, Cho said.
So he created a finance committee to track spending. He also asked the Archdiocese to audit the parish, whose accounting didn’t follow procedures required by the Archdiocese.
And that, say Cho’s supporters, is when some parishioners began spreading lies about Cho.
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