Parish facing closing gets its money

A Roman Catholic priest secretly funneled more than $176,000 from the coffers of Holy Trinity Church in the South End to another parish, prompting the Archdiocese of Boston to reimburse Holy Trinity after parishioners from the South End church forced an investigation, the archdiocese said yesterday.

Over a six-year period, the Rev. Hugh H. O'Regan moved money from Holy Trinity to St. James Church in Chinatown, where he used the funds to pay parish bills there, according to the archdiocese.

O'Regan informed neither Holy Trinity parishioners nor the archdiocese of the transfers, according to members of Holy Trinity's parish council and the archdiocese.

Holy Trinity was reimbursed by St. James, which took out a loan to make the restitution. The amount is more than Holy Trinity's annual budget and represents more than 20 percent of the parish's income during the period the transfers took place, said parish council members.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said yesterday that O'Regan, who is pastor of both churches, had simply made a mistake in moving funds to St. James.

''It was an honest bookkeeping mistake that is being corrected," said the spokesman, Terrence C. Donilon. ''He used money from Holy Trinity to pay bills for St. James." Donilon said the money was used to cover ''parish expenses" at St. James.

A day after Holy Trinity parish council members found out about the money transfers, the Dec. 16 issue of the The Pilot, the newspaper published by the archdiocese, announced that their church's scheduled Dec. 26 closing would be postponed indefinitely.

Donilon said O'Regan's actions had no connection to the announcement, nor, he said, would the episode affect the decision whether to shutter Holy Trinity, which will remain open through the New Year, but remains on the list of parishes that might be closed under Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley's ongoing reorganization of the archdiocese.

O'Regan, who does not receive a salary for running the two parishes, did not personally enrich himself through the transfer, said Donilon.

The priest will not face any disciplinary action, he said. The archdiocese refused to make O'Regan available for comment.

Holy Trinity parish council members said that the episode underscores their church's strong finances and the weaker financial standing of other parishes, like St. James, which has not been slated to close.

''We're in great fear of being closed," said Joseph LoPiccolo, 70, of Chelsea, a Holy Trinity parish council member.

''We're not a poor parish, never were a poor parish," he said. ''Maybe the other church ought to be closed."

The two churches, just blocks apart, are a study in contrast: Holy Trinity offers the area's only German and Latin Masses, while St. James provides Mass in both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

It was the decision to close Holy Trinity last year that led to disclosure of O'Regan's actions.

''We had no choice but to look into things ourselves," said Kathleen Stone, 57, of Hull, a Holy Trinity parish council member. ''We have five choirs. We're a very active parish. We thought we were solvent. So why close Holy Trinity?"

O'Regan ran St. James and lived there for years. He added Holy Trinity to his responsibilities nine years ago. Parish council members there said he has never convened a finance council at the church. Thus, council members have long been in the dark about the fiscal health of their parish.

After announcement of plans to close Holy Trinity, parish council members researched church plate contributions, as well as the sizable donations from those of German ancestry throughout the state and nation.

They concluded that the parish should be financially strong, making the clsoing decision puzzling, they said. The members requested an investigation by the archdiocese. Reporting the results of their audit in the Dec. 15 letter, David W. Smith, chancellor of the archdiocese, wrote that O'Regan had transferred $176,390 from Holy Trinity to St. James between January 1999 and December 2005.

Council members remain mystified by O'Regan's secrecy about the transfers.

''If he came to us and said St. James is in trouble and needs money, we would say, sure, help them out," LoPiccolo said. ''He's a . . . a very secretive man."

The archdiocese has offered to meet with Holy Trinity's parish council to discuss the money transfer episode, though no date has been finalized.

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.