Former Catholic Charities employee sentenced for embezzlement

April 17, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Oklahoma City, Okla., Apr 17, 2018 / 03:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A former immigration services director of Catholic Charities of Oklahoma City has been sentenced to 10 years probation after she embezzled thousands of dollars that were intended to be used for immigration fees.

Margarita I. Solis, of Oklahoma City, stole money from immigration clients in 2015 and 2016. She was charged with embezzlement in April 2017. Solis worked as an attorney and assisted Catholic Charities’ clients with immigration issues, including acquiring green cards and U.S. citizenship.

According to the charges, Solis would convert money orders given to her for immigration fees to be payable to herself, and then cash them. Prosecutors claim she stole $2,830 in 2015 and 2016, and later was accused of converting about $24,000 of filing fees into money orders for her personal use.

She resigned as an attorney in November 2017 before pleading guilty to three felony counts of embezzlement last week. As part of the plea agreement, she received probation.

If she is able to complete probation, she will not be labeled as a felon.

She paid $2,500 in restitution to Catholic Charities.

Patrick Raglow, executive director of Catholic Charities of Oklahoma City, said in a statement published in The Oklahoman that his staff did not hold any ill will against Solis, and that they sought to deal with the matter as “compassionately” as possible.

“Many of our clients come from brokenness and we deal with human brokenness all the time,” said Raglow. “And occasionally, some of our staff have brokenness also.”

 

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US bishops ask forgiveness from survivors of clergy sex abuse

June 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 1

Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 16, 2017 / 12:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Beatitudes call us to own our responsibility for suffering in the world, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta preached on Wednesday at a Mass for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Through the Beatitudes, Christ “calls us to see with new eyes how to live in a world so continually filled with sorrow, injustice, and violence,” Archbishop Gregory preached during a June 14 Mass of Prayer and Penance for Healing of Survivors of Clergy Sex Abuse in Indianapolis.

Christ also teaches “how important it is to acknowledge our own share in causing or compounding the sorrows, suffering, and violence that often seem to surround us,” he added.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said the Mass at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul in Indianapolis, on the first day of the bishops’ annual spring general assembly.

The Mass was celebrated in response to Pope Francis’ call that bishops’ conferences around the world hold a day of prayer and penance for the victims of clergy sexual abuse. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors noted last year that a survivor of clerical child sexual abuse had proposed a universal day of prayer for all victims.

During the Mass, Cardinal DiNardo asked forgiveness from all the victims of sexual abuse in the Church.

“In solidarity with our brother bishops around the world, we acknowledge the sins that have occurred,” he said, “and ask forgiveness from, and healing of, those that have suffered abuse at the hands of those who should have been protecting and caring for them.”

At the end of the Mass, all the bishops present knelt and prayed a commemorative prayer for victims of clergy sex abuse.

Archbishop Gregory preached the homily on the Gospel for the day, Matthew 5: 17-19. The archbishop apologized on behalf of the conference for all the harm done to abuse survivors and for the scandal that resulted.

“At this Mass, we bishops humbly and sincerely ask for the forgiveness of those who have been harmed, scandalized, or disspirited by events that, even if they happened many years ago, remain ongoing sources of anguish for them, and for those who love them,” he said.

“We humbly seek forgiveness from the faith-filled people of our Church and from our society at large, and especially from those whose lives may have been devastated from our failure to care adequately for the little ones entrusted to us, and for any decision that we made or should have made that exacerbated the sorrow and the heartache that the entire Church has felt and continues to feel for what we have done, and for what we have failed to do,” he continued.

“We can never say that we are sorry enough for the share that we have had in this tragedy of broken fidelity and trust.”

Only in Christ can true healing be found, the archbishop insisted.

He said that “ultimately, it must be the Lord Himself Who heals and reconciles the hearts of those who live with the pain of God’s law unheeded.”

“For that grace, with sincere hearts, with contrite spirits, and with a renewed promise to protect, we simply pray this evening.”

[…]

1 Comment

  1. It would be helpful to know more about the legal status of the clients that Solis was supposed to be helping. If it turns out that any of them were illegal aliens the irony that she was committing a crime while aiding and abetting those who are also committing crimes would be overwhelming.

    Reply

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