PENNSYLVANIA
Standard Speaker
BY BOB KALINOWSKI / PUBLISHED: JUNE 5, 2017
KINGSTON — When a fill-in priest opened Mass on Sunday at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, parishioner Denise Tomasura didn’t think anything was wrong.
Then, at the end of Mass, an unexpected bombshell was announced: the parish priest, the Rev. John Chmil, resigned amid an investigation into misused church funds.
“Personally, I am seconds from crying. I loved father,” Tomasura, 53, said Sunday afternoon. “If I said who would be the last person on earth, it would be Father Chmil. If you thought about God on earth, he would be the perfect person. I am shocked. We drove all the way home in silence.”
Tomasura said she’s hoping the issue was the result of a mistake, but a statement from the Diocese of Scranton said Chmil knowingly misused parish funds and admitted it to diocese officials. The diocese said about $130,000 in parish funds were misspent.
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