BEWARE-BE AWARE

Two Fridays ago at the daily Mass, a man spontaneously got up and started to talk about how touched he was by our service and our prayers. We were moved emotionally. As he finished, he made an appeal to everyone to help pay for his rent since he was about to be kicked out of his apartment.  We prayed over him and I asked him to see me after Mass. After saying goodbye to our parishioners, I went back and spoke with the man.
             He showed me a folder with his lease from his landlord. I will now tell you what I told him. A year ago here at St. Edward’s, we had another man who asked us, in an emergency, to help him pay off his rent. We wrote a check directly to his landlord. His landlord then "washed" the check and started creating his own checks with our routing and account number. He began to write checks that were being withdrawn directly from the parish checking account. Fortunately, our crackerjack accountant and bookkeeper noticed that we were having the Church's money stolen. We got all our money refunded by the bank. The man in the church then asked, "Well, then how do you help people like me?" Sadly, I had to tell him that the danger of theft has destroyed our ability to do so. What I did not tell him, to give him the benefit of the doubt and to avoid an incident, is that his same routine has been performed at Mass by others at numerous churches throughout the Archdiocese, including my old parish at Sacred Heart right here in Bowie.
I share with you this story because it may happen again in the future here at St. Edward’s and I believe it to be a scam. We already have a good program here, St. Edward Community Outreach (formerly known as the St. Vincent de Paul Society), which screens and helps people who are truly in need.  I am currently investigating ways to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Given the growing animosity towards the Catholic Church in society and the prevalence of mass shootings, I am looking for some help from parishioners who are police officers who might be able to help provide us with security during Sunday Masses. If you are interested, please contact me at (301) 249-9199 or [email protected]. St. Edward the Confessor, pray for us!
God Bless,
              Fr. Scott