Headline in The Times 18 July :- Good lord - priest held for cocaine party Pope Francis has urged Catholic priests to reach out to sinners living on the margins of society, but one cleric appears to have taken it too far after he was arrested at a rowdy cocaine party. Father Stefano Maria Cavalletti was detained in Milan last week when a drug-fuelled party he was attending got out of hand. Police were called by a neighbour after one of the revellers flew into a rage. Police found traces of cocaine in Father Cavaletti’s bathroom, along with fragments of his passport, which he had allegedly torn up to try to avoid identification. The parish priest of the Church of Saints Joseph and Blaise near Lake Maggiore had previously failed to turn up for Mass and a couple of weddings over the weekend in the scenic lakeside village of Carciano di Stresa. The 45-year-old priest told police he had started taking cocaine after he became depressed after a conviction for fraud last September. Father Cavalletti was given a suspended five-month prison sentence and a €400 (£316) fine for persuading an elderly female parishioner to deposit €22,000, intended for the church’s social activities, into his personal bank account. He was acquitted on other charges relating to an apartment left to him in the will of another parishioner and town council funds meant to finance a pilgrimage to the Holy Land that had also allegedly ended up in his bank account. Father Cavalletti’s arrest was announced on Tuesday by the Bishop of Novara, in keeping with the Pope’s policy of openness. Milan magistrates have said he is being held on suspicion of possessing and dealing in cocaine. A spokesman for the diocese of Novara said Bishop Franco Brambilla would be writing to parishioners in an effort to reassure and comfort them. Father Cavalletti could face dismissal from the priesthood once Italy’s secular justice system has run its course. La Stampa reported that police had found women’s clothes, along with the cocaine and passport fragments, but no sign of actual women in the Milan party pad. Father Stefano Cavalletti
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 20:24:23 +0000
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