CATHOLICS, be warned: if you get a phone call from a
bishop claiming to be stranded in the Philippines and unable to pay his
airport tax - ''could you just send a few hundred dollars'' - it's
almost certainly the ecclesiastical equivalent of the famous internet
Nigerian letters scam.
The Pope's ambassador to Australia Thursday sent an
email to all Catholic bishops, clergy, religious congregations and
institutions, warning them about financial scams that claimed Vatican
authority.
The two-paragraph letter from Archbishop Giuseppe
Lazzarotto says the email scams falsely refer to heads of dicasteries
(Vatican departments) and other church authorities.
''Such scams solicit financial support in favour of
exceptional situations or fictitious projects. They also ask for
monetary transfers that involve money laundering resulting from illicit
dealings,'' he says.
Archbishop Lazzarotto says if Catholics are suspicious of
any request purporting to come from Vatican officials, they should
check with his office.
In one case a decade ago, a hoaxer had a letter
apparently from the Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Congo.
It said the
bearer was the archbishop's nephew, that his mother (the archbishop's
sister) had died, and could Catholics help him return to Africa for the
funeral.
He took a taxi from Sydney to Bathurst to collect funds from the bishop but was met by the fraud squad.
Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference general secretary
Brian Lucas said there were many schemes where people tried to use
church agencies and the names of senior church officials to extract
cash.
''We want to support genuine charitable initiatives, but
at the same time one has to be worldly-wise about verifying the
authenticity of these requests,'' Father Lucas said.