Arrest of usher triggers outcry in diocese

The Raleigh diocese was cast in an uproar in early January, as the local newspaper reported on sex abuse settlements exceeding $1 million, and on a police sting carried out during Masses at the request of a priest, targeting an elderly parishioner suspected of stealing from the collection plate.

The year began well, when The News & Observer's Jan. 1 edition cited newly installed Bishop Michael Burbidge as one of seven "People to Watch" in the area. "The new bishop's foremost initiative in 2007 will be to increase the number of men entering the priesthood," the paper wrote, giving a plug to a basketball game the bishop refereed between seminarians and local Catholic school teams to encourage vocations.

That was the end of the good news.

On Jan. 4, the paper reported on the police sting at St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Cary, N.C., a megaparish in one of the state's wealthiest communities. At the request of the pastor, Msgr. Tim O'Connor, undercover police staked out three Masses and installed two hidden cameras in order to catch usher James Maccaline, 75, who was suspected of stealing cash out of the collection plate.

During the third Mass, on New Year's Eve, the Cary police arrested Maccaline after he passed the collection plate. Police said he was caught pocketing a marked $20 bill.

Police say Maccaline, who has been active at St. Michael for 31 years and is known fondly to parishioners as "Jimmy Mac," admitted to stealing the $20 bill. He was removed from the church, arrested and charged with misdemeanor larceny.

Then the next day, Jan. 5, the Raleigh paper ran another front-page story reporting that the diocese had paid out almost $1.2 million in 2006 to settle five priest sex-abuse complaints against the diocese, almost twice the $600,000 the diocese had allocated in its budget for such payments. In addition, a diocesan audit noted plans to contest three other priest abuse claims, two from the 1950s and one from the '60s.

On Jan. 6, another front-page story, accompanied by a color photo of Maccaline and his wife, Lois, was headlined: "Family defends arrested usher."

Lois Maccaline and her son, Thomas Smith, said they wondered why O'Connor opted to file a complaint with the Cary police rather than call the family and handle the situation "in a quieter, more dignified manner."

Smith said his stepfather is "a very sick man," who had heart bypass surgery, and suffers from hepatitis and liver cancer. "You're looking at a man who maybe has a year left," Smith told NCR, adding that Maccaline has only a fourth-grade education.

"He's mentally limited to start with," Smith said. "Most of his friends know that; people at church know that, and that's why they're so upset."

Readers deluged the newspaper and a local television station with phone calls and letters, most supportive of Maccaline and critical of O'Connor, who has not granted interviews since the story broke.

"A church that asked for compassion, respect and forgiveness for its clergy should certainly demonstrate the same in its treatment of others," Catholics Karla and Larry Diener wrote in a letter published Jan. 13 in The News & Observer.

In a letter published Jan. 9, St. Michael parishioner Karen Casey Barefoot wrote that Maccaline's arrest "has shamed the entire Catholic community."

"I do not condone theft but do support acts of human kindness," Barefoot wrote. "The family should have been contacted by the pastor, not the Cary police."

But letter writer Harry Cooper backed O'Connor: "Trying to turn the accused into a victim? I don't think so! The pastor did the right thing."

By PATRICK O'NEILL

Raleigh, N.C.

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