STARKVILLE, MS
Starkville Daily News
November 19, 2018
By Ryan Philips
Few details have been revealed by the Catholic Diocese of Jackson concerning a Starkville priest at the center of a federal investigation.
But through an email exchange with the Starkville Daily News, the Diocese did provide background information on Father Lenin Vargas of St. Joseph Catholic Church as church leaders address accusations that he defrauded parishioners with a fake cancer diagnosis — a scam that investigators and some in the church believe was covered up by the Diocese to avoid negative publicity.
Diocese Communications Director Maureen Smith said Father Vargas was first ordained a priest in June 2006. Most recently the native of Mexico was the subject of a 37-page affidavit filed in federal court in Jackson last week with a search warrant for both the Starkville parish and the Diocese’s office in Jackson.
In the affidavit, as many as five confidential informants provided information to investigators, with at least one saying Vargas was diagnosed with HIV in 2014, but instead told parishioners at St. Joseph and Corpus Christi Mission in Macon that he had a rare form of cancer and began collecting donations for his supposed cancer treatment in Canada.
Informants also claim he propagated at least two fraudulent pet projects — an orphanage and a chapel on a Mexican mountain — to those in the church to raise money, which he then used for unrelated personal expenses not associated with any medical expenses.
Smith said Vargas attended Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. When he was first ordained in 2006, he served as the associate pastor at St. Francis of Assisi in Madison, Mississippi.
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