"Nun with reported gambling problem accused of stealing $128,000"

Now THERE'S a headline you don't see every day!

;-)

The nun was reported as saying:

"What vow of poverty? Living in a material world, and I am a material girl!"

Sister Mary Anne Rapp pleaded not guilty in court Monday night to a second-degree grand larceny charge, according to NBC affiliate WHEC in Rochester, N.Y. Rapp, 67, is a nun with the Sisters of St. Francis and has been working at St. Mark's and St. Mary's Catholic Church in Holley, N.Y., WHEC reported. Holley is west of Rochester.

If you ever saw the stage play Nunsense or Nunsense II, then you know the convent is in NJ and they were destitute until they won the Publishers Clearing House Grand Prize for $35 million. Perhaps Sister Mary Anne, with the Sisters of St Francis thought there was an easier way and a story line to get the cash and start a Nunsense III for the NY convent? Reality mimicking Art!

In the immortal words of Duke, the Doonesbury character, "but the pension fund was just sitting there."

"Sorry to all the people she stoled money from"

Why? She didn't steal from a bunch of people, she stole from god........and we all know the upkeep in heaven is expensive, not to mention keeping all those souls in hell for eternity.

That is exactly what I thought when I heard this story yesterday. Exactly!

At our county fair a few months ago, some church had a tent with a sign outside that said "come learn the only three things that god can not do". When a gentleman invited me inside, I asked if stopping priests from molesting little boys was one of the things on their list.

But the priests are male so it's different. She is just a woman, a handmaid, she must be held accountable. What a screwed up world.

Hee Hee, Anji, the motto of this story is: You can mess with the Church's bois, but, DON't mess with the Church's Money!

Wrong, cronewinter, priests most certainly HAVE been charged with stealing parish funds and other things. Google "priest steals". Most priests and nuns believe in and follow "the rules", but there will always be some who break them. Same with any group.

Nikolaus20

Wrong, cronewinter, priests most certainly HAVE been charged with stealing parish funds

I'm sure they have. They're messing with the Church's money. I have a funny story to tell....

Back in 1123, during the first Lateran Council, Pope Calistus II decreed that clerical marriages were invalid. In early Christianity, there wasn't any real problem with priests being married. Sixteen years later (1139), during the second Lateran Council, Pope Innocent II confirmed the previous decision that clerical marriages should be invalid.

That didn't take hold so well. Even as late as the 1400's and early 1500's, at least 50% of all priests were married and this was readily accepted by normal, everyday people. In 1545, during the Council of Trent, the church takes a stand and insists that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage.

The church always kind of runs hot-and-cold on the whole priest celibate or married bit. during the 300's, the church was demanding that priests not be married, but these decrees from the Councils of Elvira, Nicea, and Laodicea were pretty much ignored. I think Pope Pelagius II pegged it best when he said in 580 A.D. that his policy was not to bother married priests AS LONG AS they did not hand over church property to wives or children.

So, since the start of the church immediately following the death of Jesus, there had been attempts to enforce celibacy and virginity and prevent priests and nuns from marrying. Around the 1300's all the way until about the 1500-1600's this finally caught traction and we now have the child-molesting priests that we now have.

What was the primary catalyst of this all? The Black Death. The Black Death raged through Europe, and peaked between 1348 and 1350. It is estimated that the Black Death killed between 30-60% of the entire population of Europe. The Catholic Church was particularly ravaged by this plague because the Priests attempted to help the sick and provide last rites to the dying. This put them in direct contact with the plague and they died in droves. Those priests who had wives and children? Those families would pack up the family belongings and hit the road. Taking with them property that belong to their husbands and/or fathers and this didn't sit well with the Church. It saw their dying priests not as sad figures dying while doing the Lord's work, but as assets leaking out of the Church which needed to be plugged.

Therefore, abolish wife and kids. Make the Priests and Nuns sole property of the Church and any money earned by the Priest during his lifetime? Property of the Church. Any books written or art painted by Priests or Nuns during their lifetimes? Property of the Church.

...and that, Kids, is why the Church favors money over priests, nuns, and their faithful. That's why it's more important to have a sexually repressed human as a priest rather than a happily married priest. Divorces are expensive. So are wills. That's why they'll hide a child molesting priest and attempt to eliminate evidence of his crime (fearful of the cost of lawsuits). That's why they'll immediately have a Nun arrested for embezzlement.

The Church... It's always been about the money and power.

Good comment for the most part (I don't agree with all of it), but you said one thing that's inaccurate: "...since the start of the church immediately following the death of Jesus, there had been attempts to enforce celibacy and virginity and prevent priests and nuns from marrying."

The Catholic Church has never tried to keep NUNS from marrying, because nuns have never married nor do they WANT to marry. The concept of "married nun" runs counter to the whole concept of BEING a nun. They are symbolically, "brides of Christ". Nuns, monks and friars are members of religious orders who live in religious COMMUNITIES. Celibacy is part and parcel of their way of life. They live as brothers or sisters, with an abbot, abbess, Mother Superior or the like, acting as "head of the family".

ON the other hand, Catholic priests who DON'T belong to religious orders WERE once able to get married. Mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests in the Catholic Church by the way, only applies to Latin Rite priests. Eastern Rite Catholic priests may get married, and married Anglican priests coming into the Church may stay married, so the Church doesn't really have a problem with married parish priests - it has a problem with changing a 1,000 year old tradition. I hope it changes.

not if they have a gambling 'habit'

Oh, ragtop, that was priceless--LOL!

A priest was called away for an emergency. Not wanting to leave the confessional unattended, he called his rabbi friend from across the street and asked him to cover for him. The rabbi told him he wouldn't know what to say, but the priest told him to come on over and he'd stay with him for a little bit and show him what to do. The rabbi comes and he and the priest are in the confessional.

A few minutes later, a woman comes in and says, "Father forgive me for I have sinned."

The priest asks, "What did you do?"

The woman says, "I committed adultery."

Priest, "How many times?"

Woman, "Three times."

Priest, "Say two Hail Mary's, put $5 in the box and go and sin no more."

A few minutes later a man enters the confessional. He says, "Father forgive me for I have sinned."

Priest, "What did you do?"

Man, "I committed adultery."

Priest, "How many times?"

Man, "Three times."

Priest, "Say two Hail Mary's, put $5 in the box and go and sin no more."

The rabbi tells the priest that he thinks he's got it so the priest leaves.

A few minutes later another woman enters and says, "Father forgive me for I have sinned."

Rabbi, "What did you do?"

Woman, "I committed adultery."

Rabbi, "How many times?"

Woman, "Once."

Rabbi, "Go do it two more times. We have a special this week, three for $5."

love the joke. Pretty damn funny.

I believe if they allowed priests and nuns to marry (not to each other), they wouldn't be bored and become pedophiles and gamblers. They'd be out committing adultery like us married folks.

"My dad once told me; 'The only meat a priest eats on friday is nun."

Or the church is just stealing your money..........So why charge the old nun? She's the perfect example of churches. Besides she's only stealing stolen money.

Nuns on the run........in this case just singular will be enough.