Two Roman Catholic priests have been accused of stealing $800,000 from the collection plate of their church in the US state of Florida.

They allegedly planned to spend the money on property, holidays, gambling and to meet the expenses of mistresses.

It could be the biggest embezzlement case to affect the Catholic Church in the United States.

via BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US priests ‘in $800,000 theft’.

It would be very easy to look down on these guys but I’m posting this here not for that but because I’m just gobsmacked at the sheer scale of the embezzlement.   Last night one of the guys at a meal we were having said that he doesn’t touch other people’s money unless someone has counted it first.  It also shows why it is wise to have two people counting money!

It brings up the importance of transparency and accountability in every day life - we all have our price at which we’d cave in and are becoming better at managing our weaknesses but no-one is beyond falling which is why we are exhorted to flee temptation: we’re so ill-equiped for dealing with it.

The key, I think, is to recognise that it is very hard to make appetites just disappear.  But you can choose how to feed them - you can either drink from “earth’s broken cisterns” by caving into temptation - though that never satisfies and only ever increases the appetite - or you can drink from the living water Jesus speaks of in John 4 which not only satisfies but puts other appetites into their lowly perspective.

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