AN ELDERLY Bavarian priest has been charged with fraud after more than €1 million in church funds was found in his apartment and resting in his bank account.
The retired priest, identified only as Hans S, was arrested in May and made an immediate confession.
Now he faces 50 counts of serious fraud, according to the state prosecutor in the northern Bavarian region of Franconia.
After being questioned last May, the priest in the town of Laudenbach am Main, with 900 parishioners, was released on bail.
He is currently on retreat in a Franconian monastery.
The Bavarian state court now has to decide if it will proceed with the trial.
Police searched his apartment and said they found €1.09 million, including an “unusual amount of change”.
That was the first indication for prosecutors that the priest had held on to money from church collections.
The priest’s sacristan, Manfred Karch, said average Sunday Mass attendance was just 80, and that the collection amounted to about €50 weekly, meaning that Fr Hans amassed the €1.09 million over decades.
As well as hoarding change, he lodged large amounts to bank accounts, invested in a pension fund and, according to reports, built a house in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg.
“A large portion of the money was recovered,” said prosecutor Dietrich Geuder yesterday.
Several of the priest’s former flock have come forward to protest.
“There’s nothing in the charges,” said one unnamed local to Munich’s TZ newspaper.
“He was a completely modest man who drove an old Volkswagen Golf.”
Mr Karch said he was sure the priest was innocent, telling the Süddeutsche Zeitungdaily: "I'd stick my hand in the fire if I'm wrong, that's how sure I am."
Prosecutors say Fr Hans managed to accumulate the money without attracting the attention of church auditors.
His scheme was only exposed when his successor in the parish was questioned by the tax office about the bank account, of which he knew nothing, through which large amounts of money had passed.
When challenged, Fr Hans denied the charges of fraud at first, telling investigators: “I saved all of that myself.”