Priest must heed
a different calling

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

When Archbishop Ryan High School president, the Rev. Charles Newman, disappeared from the school’s Far Northeast campus four years ago, many in the school community couldn’t understand why such a well-liked figure would be taken from them.
Last week, the full story finally came out, or at least the version of it alleged by a Philadelphia grand jury.
On Dec. 3, District Attorney Lynne Abraham announced the indictment of Newman on charges that he embezzled more than $900,000 from Ryan and from his religious order, the Franciscan Friars, from July 2002 through November 2003. Newman allegedly paid at least $54,000 directly to a former student whom he had sexually abused and introduced to illicit drugs years earlier.
"Instead of living a life of poverty, chastity and obedience, he chose a life of sexual debauchery, lechery, lying and stealing," Abraham said, making reference to the vows accepted by Newman, 57, upon his 1985 ordination into the Wisconsin-based Franciscans.
Abraham demanded that Newman surrender to local authorities before Christmas. If he didn’t, the prosecutor said she’d pursue the priest’s extradition to Pennsylvania. Newman lives in a retirement home operated by his religious order in Pulaski, Wis., according to court documents. He is prevented from engaging in public ministry and identifying himself publicly as a Franciscan. Newman did surrender on Christmas Eve and was released on bail.
In a printed statement, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia responded in part, "The fraudulent use of funds was a betrayal of trust within the Archbishop Ryan community; however, the greater tragedy was the sexual abuse of a minor which was discovered by the Archdiocese during the financial audits."
Newman spent more than 20 years at Ryan as a teacher and administrator. He served as principal from 1993 to 2002, when he was appointed president of the school. As president, he remained popular among students and continued to direct school theater productions.
But he had a very dark side, according to the indictment.
A bookkeeper and other staff at the largest of the 22 archdiocesan high schools began to suspect Newman of mishandling funds soon after his mid-2002 appointment as president.
The bookkeeper told the grand jury that she "had suspicions about Newman’s actions from her very first day . . . when Newman directed her to prepare two $4,000 checks payable to the ‘Franciscans’ because Newman believed that the Franciscans deserved more money than what they were being paid by the Archdiocese."
Over the next several months, Newman allegedly instructed the bookkeeper to issue many more checks to the Franciscans or individual members of the order. Newman also often took cash from the school safe or cash drawers and repaid it with checks written from school or Franciscan bank accounts that he exclusively controlled.
Ryan staff members eventually reported the suspicious behavior to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Office of Catholic Education. Though a year-end review of the school’s 2002-03 accounts came up "clean," according to the indictment, Newman’s irregular financial activity continued at the start of the 2003-04 school year.
In November 2003, the archdiocese scheduled an internal audit. On Nov. 20, Newman allegedly admitted having made thousands of dollars of unauthorized withdrawals and was dismissed from his position with the school.
A later third-party forensic audit of the Ryan accounts revealed that Newman allegedly paid out almost $332,000 to unauthorized recipients during his presidency. Most of the money went to Franciscans, while $19,800 in checks and cash was paid directly to 1996 Ryan graduate Arthur Baselice III.
The bookkeeper later told the investigating grand jury that Baselice had visited Newman at the school on numerous occasions and that she had seen the priest hand the former student envelopes of cash.
The archdiocese received the results of the forensic audit in April 2004. Two months later, Baselice dropped another bombshell that detailed Newman’s alleged alter-ego as a child predator and offered keen insight into what might have happened to all of that missing money.
Baselice, who had moved to Mantua, N.J., filed a civil lawsuit against the archdiocese and its leaders, accusing Newman of abusing him sexually numerous times during the student’s junior and senior years at Archbishop Ryan High School.
According to the lawsuit, the encounters occurred at the St. Pius X Friary adjacent to the high school. Newman allegedly used drugs and alcohol to groom the boy and abused him during an early 1996 trip to Denver, as well.
The suit further accused Newman of giving the teen cash to buy illegal drugs for both.
Baselice claimed that the abuse stopped upon his graduation when he told Newman that he had contracted a sexual disease. But Newman continued giving him money to buy drugs.
A state court ultimately dismissed the suit on the grounds of expired statute of limitations. Baselice, who had developed drug and alcohol addictions since his departure from Ryan, died of a drug overdose on Nov. 30, 2006. He was 28.
Notified by the archdiocese of the alleged thefts and sexual abuse, the District Attorney’s Office referred the Newman case to the grand jury.
In its own investigation, the grand jury learned that Newman also served as treasurer for the St. Pius X Friary. From July 2002 through November 2003, he allegedly wrote unauthorized checks on Franciscan accounts totaling $552,280. Most of the notes were made out to "cash" and personally endorsed by Newman, the indictment states. Also, two checks totaling $34,200 were made out directly to Baselice.
In a Web page dedicated to the memory of Baselice, his father is quoted as attributing his son’s adult problems to the abuse he suffered at the hands of Newman.
"Some victims not only lost their youth, but also the future," Arthur Baselice Jr. said. "As the parent of a child victimized by the clergy, I watch(ed) the suffering on a daily basis." ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com