Milwaukee priest had clerical support in theft case
A Wisconsin parish says its former pastor stole much more than the $33k police identified
A Milwaukee priest was sentenced this month to two years probation after he pled guilty to several counts of theft from his parish over a four-year period.
In an apparent deal with prosecutors, Fr. Mauricio Fernandez-Boscan pleaded guilty to stealing more than $33,000 from Milwaukee’s St. Adelbert’s Parish.
But while the current parish pastor claims that Fernandez-Boscan actually embezzled more than $160,000 from its accounts, Fernandez-Boscan saw support from other priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese amid his conviction.
In a strong show of support, eight fellow priests sent letters to the judge who sentenced Fernandez-Boscan — an unusually high number of interventions for a priest convicted of stealing from his parish.
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Fernandez-Boscan was charged in February 2025 with three counts of embezzlement, after a criminal investigation into diocesan reports that the priest — pastor of St. Adalbert’s in Milwaukee — had used parish credit cards and the parish checkbook for trips, personal bills, clothing, and other expenses.
Investigators said that the pastor made several purchases with parish credit cards, which had no legitimate parish use.
He spent thousands on a riding lawn mower and other lawn equipment delivered to the privately-owned home he shared with another priest. He spent almost $2,500 on flooring for the house.
He bought airplane tickets for himself and the other priest, Fr. Javier Bustos, to take personal trips to Mexico and Rome.
In Rome, he spent thousands on clerical garb and vestments — not purchases made on behalf of the parish — at Barbiconi, Euroclero, and the Borgo Shop, close to the Vatican.
In addition, the priest made student loan payments, bought glasses, and bought a personal computer and printer with parish money.
Fernandez-Boscan also wrote $8,000 in checks from parish accounts to pay his personal immigration attorney; the priest is an immigrant from Venezuela.
Bustos, the archdiocesan vicar for Hispanic ministry and Fernandez-Boscan’s housemate, told investigators that the trips had no legitimate parish purpose, and that Fernandez-Boscan had paid for renovations to the home they shared together.
In the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, it is not uncommon for priests to share ownership of houses, as many parish rectories were sold off during the leadership of Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who oversaw the archdiocese from 1977 until 2002
But while investigators flagged less than $35,000 in theft, the current pastor of St. Adalbert Parish told a court last month that Archdiocese of Milwaukee audit found Fernandez-Boscan actually “embezzled $160,720 — a much larger amount than the one shown by the criminal complaint.”
It is not clear why Fernandez-Boscan was criminally charged with stealing considerably less than $160,000. Robert Warren, an assistant professor of accounting at Radford University and an expert in parish financial theft, told The Pillar that the priest likely agreed to plead guilty even before he was charged, in exchange for a relatively light docket of charges.
Fr. Ricardo Martin, pastor of St. Adalbert Parish, suggested as much in his victim impact statement to the court.
While Fernandez-Boscan has paid back $33,000 to the parish, Martin said he should be required to “restitute the full amount of the embezzlement and not just [the amount] he negotiated” with prosecutors.
The priest explained that he believes that Fernandez-Boscan should be required to apologize to parishioners, “many of [whom] are of modest economic resources.”
“Saint Adalbert Parish has suffered a great deal due to this situation,” Martin told the court.
Initial news reports on Fernandez-Boscan’s arrest had used Martin’s photo instead of Fernandez-Boscan’s, Martin said, and news coverage “generated widespread negative publicity” for the parish.
Martin said the case has “caused a lot of stress,” and led to “a loss of parishioners and income” at the parish.
But despite Martin’s victims’ impact statement, eight priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee — seven priests of the archdiocese and one member of the Salvatorian religious order — submitted letters to the court praising Fernandez-Boscan’s character, with priests identifying him as a man of “high virtues,” who was “honest,” and of “exemplary character.”
Priests facing criminal sentencing for financial crimes often include letters of support from parishioners, but the inclusion of so many letters from diocesan confreres is unusual.
One priest, Fr. Dennis Saran, suggested that Fernandez-Boscan may have been “over-trusting of people and uneducated as to the working of finances in the United States” — presumably influencing his illicit expenditures.
While the clerical letters were uniformly solicitous, the most enthusiastic came from Bustos — Fernandez-Boscan’s housemate — who traveled with Fernandez-Boscan on parish-funded trips and saw home renovations covered with parish funds.
“Fr. Mauricio is a man of deep faith, devotion, and prayer,” Bustos wrote. He “has embraced his ministry and his assignments selflessly and with great generosity.”
Bustos was in 2022 appointed to become archdiocesan vicar for clergy in Milwaukee, set to replace outgoing vicar for clergy Fr. Jerry Herda, with an announced start date in July 2022.
But the appointment was apparently rescinded before Bustos could begin the job, with another priest replacing Herda in January 2023.
The archdiocese gave no public indication of the reason Bustos’ appointment was seemingly withdrawn.
And while Bustos gave an account of Fernandez-Boscan’s extensive theft to police, his sentencing letter took a different tone.
Fernandez-Boscan’s “character, his work ethic, and his true being are not reflected in the allegations presented against him.”
“I see Fr. Mauricio praying every day and offering Holy Mass in private for those in need (despite his current situation).... As a person, Mauricio is a generous, noble, and reliable man.”
Given that Bustos benefited personally from Fernandez-Boscan’s financial crimes, it is not clear whether the court took into account his endorsement when considering a sentence for the priest.
But Warren told The Pillar that other considerations might have impacted Fernandez-Boscan’s openness to a plea agreement.
While the priest stole at least $33,000 according to police — and the parish claims more — he was formally charged with three counts of stealing less than $2,500, a significant reduction in charges.
Warren said that “pleading guilty to misdemeanors gives him a shot at staying in the country,” and speculated that archdiocesan leaders might have supported lesser charges because of a growing need for Spanish-speaking clerics.
In their sentencing memo, Fernandez-Boscan’s attorneys argued that incarceration would be inappropriate for their client because at 42, the priest “is past the age at which most individuals engage in the bulk of criminal activity.”
The attorneys also argued that there would be no deterrent effect for other would-be thieves to see Fernandez-Boscan sent to jail.
“In recent years a consensus has emerged among criminal justice professionals that the general deterrent effect of incarceration has been overstated in the past,” attorney Craig Johnson argued last week, urging that Fernandez-Boscan be given probation.
But Warren said he disagrees.
“I think in the case of Catholic clergy the deterrent is vitally important. Catholic clergy, including diocesan priests, is a unique subset of our population because they wield such great power over the parish,” Warren argued.
To prevent clerical theft, Warren said, “parish priests should know that abusing the trust of their parishioners will result in almost certain punishment, including the loss of their priestly facilities and their ability to provide for themselves in an ecclesial setting.”
On that front, it is not yet clear whether Fernandez-Boscan will return to ministry during his probationary sentence.
The priest was removed from St. Adalbert Parish in 2022, but Archdiocese of Milwaukee declined to clarify the next steps.
“The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Saint Adalbert Parish cooperated fully with the Milwaukee District Attorney's office as they processed the criminal complaint against Father Mauricio Fernandez-Boscan,” an archdiocesan spokesperson told The Pillar Wednesday
“We will not offer comment about any possible canonical proceedings relating to this situation.”
Editors’ note: This report was updated to include a statement from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
The idea that someone aged 42 is past the age of bulk criminal activity seems like a stretch to say the least. Maybe if you look at all criminal activity, like murder, maybe younger people commit more murder, but white collar crimes like embezzlement, I would think any age would be susceptible to that type of crime. Actually, the older you get and more responsibility you get, I would think you have a greater opportunity to commit white collar crimes. A young intern or entry-level position is much less likely to have the power to subvert internal controls than an older executive.
I think this partly wrapped up in a broader set of issues that arises from having “missionary” priests from underdeveloped countries come to the US as pastors.
Fr. Mauricio (whom I’ve met many times over) does indeed come across to many as a benign gentle and warm-hearted priest.
But there’s inevitably a problem when priests from low-wealth underdeveloped countries, where the idea of managing finances is more “fast and loose” and tight reporting and regulations, where money and resources are often seen as communal, and where fiduciary responsibility is less of a common cultural phenomenon… now traveling to the US to be placed in authority over a parish (a small local place in their mind) with levels of money are comparatively extravagant compared to their currency and economic situation back home (Americans of “modest financial means” are seen as very wealthy by foreign priests when compared to people in their home countries). Of course things like “a new riding lawnmower for a priests’ residence” and “clerical vestments in Rome” seem like they could be normal purchases.
A missionary priest from India (for a different example) could easily be very tempted to use parish funds, because we have insane wealth compared to the average Indian, and his home culture is not necessarily renowned for inculcating good financial regulating, fiscal reporting and transparency, and separation of funds for earmarked purposes. Who’s shocked?
And some of these missionary priests are basically extorted by their home diocese (particularly Indian dioceses), where much of a foreign pastor’s pay gets funneled back to the home diocese, leaving the priest with an even smaller pay than what priests already typically receive. This breeds both resentment and desperation, which are the breeding grounds for self-justification of parish theft.
Father Mauricio probably has family back in Venezuela who’ve had to see neighbors resort to eating dogs several times over during financial crises. We Americans have extravagant wealth in unimaginable excess by comparison, so why not (as the thinking goes) use a portion of the communal funds of such excess to help make a repair the floors of a priest residence?