A Catholic priest in Pennsylvania was arrested and charged with pocketing nearly $100,000 in church tithes for his own personal use, including vacations and providing money for men he met on a dating app.
The Chester County district attorney’s office said Father Joseph McLoone allegedly deposited the money into his own personal account while he was a priest at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Downingtown.
“Father McLoone held a position of leadership and his parishioners trusted him to properly handle their generous donations to the church,” said Charles Gaza, the district attorney’s office’s chief of staff. “Father McLoone violated the trust of the members of St. Joseph’s for his own personal gain.”
Father McLoone reportedly opened an account called “St. Joseph Activity Account” on Nov. 2, 2011 — his first All Souls holiday at the church — and used it to nearly double his stipend.
An affidavit filed by the district attorney’s office said Father McLoone, who took an oath of celibacy as a priest, used the funds to provide for “personal relationships.”
Father McLoone reportedly made 27 payments totaling over $3,000 to men from 2015 to 2018, including over $1,200 to a man in a New York prison.
His attorney, Melissa McCafferty, said the case is based on “suspicions and conjecture.”
“Father Joe wants, needs and deserves a lot of pushback,” Ms. McCafferty said. “These assertions are absurd. This DA’s office is notorious for filing charges on suspicions and conjecture. These accusations came about from a private letter sent to his employer, not from anything criminally substantial.”
Father McLoone, who replaced a priest arrested for covering up child sex abuse by other church leaders, was placed on administrative leave after the Philadelphia Archdiocese began investigating him. He would later resign in August 2018.
They labeled the charges as “serious and disturbing” and vowed to seek financial restitution.
“Those expenses were related to relationships with adults that represented a violation of The Standards of Ministerial Behavior and Boundaries established by the Archdiocese,” they said.
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