ITALY
Mirror (UK)
BY IAN SPARKS , STEVE DOOHAN
A Catholic priest is facing trial in Italy for squandering £70,000 of church cash on holidays, luxury cars – and a facelift for his mum.
The 57-year-old churchman was put in charge of a £10million bequest to his parish in Legnaro, near Venice.
But instead of distributing all the money to charities for the poor, he splashed out on two sports cars, a motorbike, a skiing holiday and a break at a Mediterranean beach resort.
The priest even paid for a cosmetic skin tuck for his elderly mother, local police said.
The case is reminiscent of the plot of the classic sitcom Father Ted , where Irish priest Ted Crilly was exiled to Craggy Island as punishment following an embezzlement scandal from a fund set up to take an ill girl to Roman Catholic shrine Lourdes.
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