Priest from Hell

[Pete C]

That's the headline on both the NY Post & Daily News:

nypost.com:



October 9, 2003 -- Cops found more than they expected when they went to arrest a Queens priest on harassment charges - guns, gay porn and Nazi paraphernalia, officials said.
The Rev. John Johnston, 64, also told cops more than they expected.

Sources said he confessed he had swiped $80,000 from a Long Island church where he has celebrated Sunday Mass for the past 25 years.

Johnston's arrest late Tuesday night on aggravated harassment charges shocked officials in three Catholic dioceses:

* In the Brooklyn Diocese - his home base for almost 40 years - where cops claim he made "threatening and harassing" obscene calls to staffers at Bishop Loughlin Memorial HS in Fort Greene.

* In the Rockville Centre Diocese, where he helped celebrate mass at St. Martin of Tours Church in Bethpage while he allegedly embezzled $80,000 that parish officials never missed.

* And in the Newark Archdiocese, where he taught at the all-boys Oratory Preparatory School in Summit for 23 years, until his retirement last June.



The seedy details of Johnston secret life were exposed Tuesday night when cops went to his apartment at 78-12 35th Ave. in Jackson Heights after tracing a barrage of "profanity laced" phone calls to him, officials said.

While police were taking him into custody, they found three pistols - one of them an unlicensed .38 - lying on a bureau in his living room along with homosexual pornography and Nazi helmets, daggers and other mementos, law enforcement sources said.

They also found thousands in cash on the bureau, and more in a shopping bag in his bedroom, the sources said.

Johnston told police he had been stealing money from the Bethpage church for 25 years - taking as much as $6,200 a week, some of it from the poor box, sources said.

"That's my 401(k) plan," he told police, a source said.

Johnston, who was led of out his apartment wearing a kimono, was charged in Brooklyn with aggravated harassment.

He is expected to be charged in Queens with weapons possession and possession of stolen property.

And embezzlement charges are likely to follow, according to Nassau police.

Neighbors described Johnston as an "unfriendly loner" who "never said hello" and "wouldn't even hold the door open for you."

"Who would expect that a priest would do something so outrageous?" asked Maria Rodriguez, the superintendent's wife, who said Johnston "was a very angry man."

At Rockville Centre Diocesan headquarters, spokeswoman Joanne Navarro said "shocked" church officials never suspected money was being embezzled.

"The first we heard was what we heard from the police," she noted.

At St. Martin of Tours, the Rev. John McKenna said he feared the revelations about Johnston will "certainly hurt people. It will hurt us."

A shaken churchgoer refused to discuss the priest's arrest, noting, "I'm not going to react to it because I can't believe it."

Brooklyn Diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa said Johnston had a clean record. "We never had any complaints against him," he said. "We're shocked."

Outside Oratory Prep, a 16-year-old junior recalled how Johnston "always talked about how smart Hitler was - how he gave powerful speeches."

Another student described the priest, who taught English, history and religion, as "a crabby old dud."

At the Newark Archdiocese, spokesman Jim Goodness called the charges against Johnston "unbelievable."

" Nothing along these lines was exhibited while he was here. He was just a teacher on the faculty who went home on weekends."

[Sand]

(edited : let's talk about priests as rulers some other time)