WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic World Report [San Francisco CA]
August 3, 2024
By Dr. Robert Warren, Dr. Timothy Fogarty, and Dr. Dan Nugent
What motivated Fr. John Mattingly to embezzle from his congregation? How did he justify the theft to himself? And how did he commit the embezzlement without detection until after he retired?
On May 1, 2017, disgraced Catholic priest John Mattingly confessed to United States District Court Judge Deborah Chasanow to embezzling $400,000 from the parishioners of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Leonardtown, Maryland, where he had served as pastor from 1992 until his retirement in 2010. Father Mattingly’s court-imposed penance included one day in jail (time served), three years’ probation, and $400,000 in restitution.
This case deserves special attention because, unlike many of the 95 cases of Catholic priest financial fraud adjudicated through the courts, investigated by civil authorities who declined prosecution, or handled internally by Church authorities over the last fifty years, the 70-year-old priest made full restitution before sentencing and did not benefit financially from the embezzlement.
This case received coverage in both the local secular and Catholic media, but Mattingly declined to provide a motive for his felonious actions, and none could be inferred by his lifestyle. Mattingly lived modestly in a home inherited from his parents and did not live beyond his means. He also did not begin his criminal activity until 2004, when he was 58 years old with 34 years of priestly service, including 14 years as pastor of the defrauded parish.
In this article, we examine this case using the Fraud Triangle to answer three questions: What motivated Fr. Mattingly to embezzle from his congregation? How did he justify the theft to himself? Finally, we will examine how Father Mattingly committed the embezzlement without detection until after he retired.
The Fraud Triangle
The Fraud Triangle, originally developed by Donald Ray Cressey, has proven a remarkably robust analytical device for the understanding of a broad range of financial deviance. This set of three factors (opportunity, motivation (pressure), and rationalization) has been successfully applied to many occupations and industries. Nonetheless, the specific meanings given to the general elements of the Fraud Triangle can be expected to vary. Moreover, additional constructs that could not be subsumed by the triangle should be contemplated. In other words, the Fraud Triangle should be always approached as an empirical question, and one which views the triangle as a starting point.
Although the fraud literature remains firmly grounded in the corporate world, it has made major efforts to cover the not-for-profit organizational sphere in recent years. This movement is consistent with the general recommendation that the advancement of knowledge of fraud would necessitate industry-specific inquiry. Within the not-for-profit world, deviance within religious organizations has been differentially ignored by researchers.
The study of fraud in the religious arena offers several advantages, beyond the irony of its presence. Anecdotal accounts characterize these entities as reluctant and slow adopters of modern business practices, including elementary internal controls. When combined with a high volume of cash-intensive resources flowing through them, religious entities’ prospects for large losses are clear. The ideology of religion also creates a surprising resistance to reform, in part reflecting that religion verges toward a closed system operating under its own rules.
This research further narrows the inquiry into a single religious denomination and a single type of fraud. Catholicism makes up the largest single religious body in the United States, making it especially worthy of specific attention. Focusing only upon it reduces differences that can be attributed to hierarchical control and personnel power variations. Singling out embezzlement makes concerns over how the fraud was accomplished rather uniform and very understandable. Embezzlement is a mundane form of asset misappropriation that is relatively frequent and easy to detect, and well within the technical ability of most people.
An extensive archival data collection suggests that the opportunity to commit embezzlement is very salient. On the other hand, pressure and rationalization, as they are conventionally understood, have little expression in these cases. The factual record supports a moral licensing explanation, which should be understood as a supplement to the Fraud Triangle for this setting.
Background
Father Mattingly was born in 1946 in Washington, D.C. and raised in rural St. Mary’s County, Maryland. He was sexually abused on multiple occasions starting in 1954 at the age of eight by a Catholic priest who was a friend of the family. The future Father Mattingly never told his parents or grandparents because the abusive priest said that if he did so, the young John Mattingly would go to Hell.1
Despite suffering sexual abuse by the hands of this priest, Mattingly studied for the priesthood and was ordained at the age of 26 in 1972. As is typical for priestly careers, he started as an assistant pastor and was appointed to his first pastorate in 1987. In 1992, he was appointed the pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in St. Mary’s County, where he served until his early retirement for medical reasons in 2010.
Mattingly suffered from significant mental and physical ailments throughout much of his adulthood. Beginning in 1984, Father Mattingly entered into outpatient psychiatric care to cope with “…depression, panic disorders…post-traumatic stress disorder…and anxiety disorder” due to the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. Beginning perhaps as early as the 1980s, he battled physical health issues including stenosis of the spine, arthritis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), incontinence, heart arrhythmia, and kidney problems related the plethora of prescribed medications he had used to treat his mental conditions.
So why did Mattingly decide to steal from his parishioners after 34 years of priesthood? According to the sentencing memorandum submitted by Mattingly’s defense attorney and not contested by the prosecution, the catalyst occurred during a meeting between Mattingly and now defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006 . After approximately 20 years of mental health treatments, Mattingly decided to confide in then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick about his childhood abuse when then-Cardinal McCarrick visited Father Mattingly’s parish. Mattingly wanted McCarrick’s help with establishing a fund to provide support to other victims of childhood sexual abuse. Instead of offering consolation, guidance, and support, then-Cardinal McCarrick “…threw up his (McCarrick’s) hands, speaking loudly, and told John (Father Mattingly) in no uncertain terms that he did not wish to hear this. He (McCarrick) further stated that John (Father Mattingly) was under no circumstances to divulge the name of the priest to anyone. Cardinal McCarrick stormed out of the meeting, got in his car and left, without any further word to John (Father Mattingly)” (Chapman, 2017, 8). McCarrick’s response infuriated Mattingly, and he began embezzling money from the parish, which he intended to use to establish a trust for abused children upon his death.
Mattingly’s crime spree was long running but not elaborate. From September 2004 to September 2010, Mattingly “fraudulently deposited more than 500 checks (made payable to the parish and/or other related charities such as the Bishop’s Appeal) from more than 135 St. Francis parishioners…” and deposited those checks into his personal bank account (Rosenstein, 2017, 9).
In September 2010, Mattingly resigned as pastor for medical reasons. Mattingly’s embezzlement was subsequently discovered during a financial review and the Archdiocese of Washington suspended Father Mattingly from exercising any priestly ministry and contacted the Maryland State Attorney’s Office, who subsequently forwarded the case to the United States Attorney’s Office in Baltimore, Maryland. At that point, the Archdiocese of Washington had literally “made a federal case out of it.”
Opportunity
Mattingly’s embezzlement was simplicity itself. From around September 2004 through September 2010, Mattingly deposited 500 checks totaling $400,000 made payable to the either the parish (St. Francis Xavier Church) or the St. Vincent De Paul Society (a Catholic association which serves the poor locally) into one of several personal accounts. He endorsed many of the checks as “Reverend” and made notations on the memo lines of the checks denoting a charitable purpose. The Archdiocese also alleged that Father Mattingly also stole as much as $158,000 in cash that was deposited into Father Mattingly’s personal bank account, but that allegation was not included in the plea agreement.
Catholic parishes, like many houses of worship, are particularly susceptible to fraud because they often operate on bare-bones staff and the trust principle. St. Francis Xavier Church was no exception. It was a small parish in rural Maryland, and Father Mattingly was the only priest assigned to the parish. The lack of an effective internal control function is evidenced by the length of the embezzlement (6 years), the scale of the embezzlement (500 checks), the absence of co-conspirators, the fact that the Archdiocese of Washington did not begin to investigate the embezzlement until early 2012, over a year after Mattingly was granted an early retirement for medical reasons, and did not refer the matter to civil authorities until 2014. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) probably understands the significance of weak internal controls, because it created an internal control manual available to the public.
Pressure (Motivation)
Unlike many fraudsters who steal to finance a lifestyle for which they could not afford through legal means, Father Mattingly lived a “miserly lifestyle” (Chapman, 2017, 9). Instead, Mattingly embezzled the money in order to fund a trust upon his death to help other survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It should be noted that no irrevocable trust was ever established and the money stayed in Father Mattingly’s personal accounts, but Father Mattingly did take steps to establish several revocable trusts before his embezzlement was discovered, and it is clear from his will that he intended the revocable trusts to be funded by the proceeds of his estate.
Rationalization
Rationalizations are used by the fraudster to justify his actions. In this case, Father Mattingly believed that the Catholic Church had a financial obligation to him and other victims of clergy sexual abuse. The rationalization that justified the embezzlement of the parish funds was provided by then-Cardinal McCarrick’s lack of empathy, his refusal to listen to the story of his childhood sexual abuse, and especially for ordering him not to repeat the story to anyone. Father Mattingly’s mental state also deserves consideration. During this time, he suffered from a plethora of mental and physical ailments and may have been prescribed medications which could have clouded his judgment.
Discussion
This case highlights the tragic results of the failure of internal controls and poor personnel practices. The internal control environment at the parish was non-existent, as demonstrated by Father Mattingly’s ability to divert 500 checks totaling $400,000 meant for the parish to his personal bank account. It appears that the Archdiocese did not conduct regular audits, and the parish finance council, which is required by the Vatican and is supposed to help the pastor with administering the temporal goods of the parish, failed to exercise due diligence.
Internal controls are only as good as the people implementing them, and the record reflects that Father Mattingly lacked the mental acuity and physical strength to run a parish, which resulted in his early retirement for medical reasons in 2010. According to the sentencing memorandum filed by his attorney, Father Mattingly suffered from depression, panic attacks, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress stemming from his childhood sexual abuse, stenosis of the spine, arthritis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart arrhythmia, and kidney problems. The Archdiocese should have retired Father Mattingly on a medical disability long before, not leaving him alone and unsupervised with the responsibility of a parish.
However, retiring the ailing Father Mattingly before he turned 70 years old (the age at which Catholic priests in the United States become eligible to retire) would presuppose, perhaps incorrectly, that the Archdiocese had a priest with which to replace him. According to the Center for Research in the Apostolate (CARA), the number of Catholic priests in the United States declined from 59,192 in 1970 to 34,923 in 2021, a 41% decline. On top of this steep decline, only 66% of diocesan (parish) priests are active in ministry, indicating that the remaining third are probably retired.
At the same time, the Catholic population increased from 47.9 million to 66.8 million, a 40% increase. Removing Father Mattingly before 2010 may have relegated St. Francis Xavier Church to one of the 3,251 parishes in the United States without a resident pastor. As fewer Catholic priests serve a growing number of parishioners, bishops may begin to turn a blind eye to a pastor who takes from the till as long as the Masses are celebrated, confessions are heard, and the babies are baptized. Some bishops are already ignoring criminal convictions in order to staff parishes. Of the 95 cases of Catholic priest financial fraud identified by Warren and Fogarty (2023), 64 resulted in criminal convictions. Of those 64 cases, 20 felonious priests (31% of those with criminal convictions) were returned to active ministry.
This case also highlights that the Fraud Triangle may not be robust enough to apply equally to all situations. The Fraud Triangle presupposes that fraudsters are motivated by self-interest and rationalize their actions so that they appear logical to the fraudster. This may not be the case with Father Mattingly if one believes the uncontested sentencing memorandum filed with the Court by Father Mattingly’s attorney. Instead of using the stolen funds for his own benefit, he hoarded the ill-gotten gain for distribution to the needy upon his departure from this life. He should not, however, be idolized as a modern-day Robin Hood, because the mythical Robin Hood stole from the unjustly enriched and gave to the poor, while Father Mattingly stole from those to whom he owed a fiduciary duty and delivered the ill-gotten gain into his personal bank account.
Father Mattingly appeared to take very little time to rationalize the fleecing of his flock or justify it to himself or others. This may be because Father Mattingly’s judgment was clouded by the psychological damage stemming from long-term and severe childhood sexual abuse, and was further eroded by the plethora of medications he consumed to cope with both his mental and physical health challenges. If he had been of sound mind and body, his judgment of the situation may have led to a different outcome, such as the filing of a civil suit in order to obtain the compensation he deserved for his childhood sexual abuse.
Epilogue
Mattingly died of cancer on October 19, 2017, less than three months into his three-year probationary period. He received a Catholic funeral at St. Francis Xavier Church, the same parish from which he embezzled.
In 2019, Cardinal McCarrick was “laicized” (removed from the clerical state) after the Vatican concluded that McCarrick was a serial sexual abuser of adults and minors. In 2021, Massachusetts authorities charged McCarrick with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in the 1970s. In 2023, Wisconsin authorities charged McCarrick with sexually assaulting a teen in 1977. Both cases are pending.
Limitations
The primary limitation of this study is that Father Mattingly’s account of his sexual abuse, and Cardinal McCarrick’s response to the disclosure, cannot be verified. However, Father Mattingly made this disclosure to the Court and was subject to rebuttal by the prosecution, which had an incentive to paint Father Mattingly in as negative a light as possible. Neither the Court nor the prosecution contested his account.
Endnote:
1 The name of the priest was cited in court documents. The Archdiocese of Washington confirmed that a Jesuit priest of that name was present in the archdiocese that that time, but that no sexual abuse complaints were on file for that Jesuit (Fiorentino, 2020). An attorney for the Jesuits confirmed that a Jesuit priest with the same name as cited in the court documents was born in 1921, was ordained in 1953 for the Maryland Province of the Jesuits, was laicized in 1974, and died in 2001.
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