Please read Galante and Fol­lieri: the Bishop and the Con Man, which lays out the details men­tioned in this post.

The Dio­cese of Cam­den is in fran­tic spin con­trol mode after yesterday’s rev­e­la­tions that Bishop Galante per­son­ally received $400,000
from high fly­ing Euro­trash con man Raf­faelo Fol­lieri for the sale of a
beach house the Bishop had been unable to unload. Follieri’s the guy
who’s been try­ing to buy up Catholic church prop­er­ties across the
coun­try while mak­ing out with his Hol­ly­wood girl­friend on San Tropez
beaches and par­ty­ing it up with Bill Clinton’s sleezy bil­lion­aire
buddies.

It seems like a pretty clear cut case. Galante had his hand in Follieri’s cookie jar.
Sold his beach house to the guy who stood to profit most from the
Bishop’s plan to sell off half of South Jersey’s churches. Old­est story
in the book. Give him the cell next to Follieri’s and they can rem­i­nisce about
the good old days (NSFW).

I’ve been won­der­ing just how the Dio­cese would try to spin this story
as it waits for fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tors to come knock­ing at the door. And
today the offi­cial Spokesper­son in Charge of Fairy Tales called up all the papers. Ladies and gen­tle­men, we present you with:

The Andrew Wal­ton Idiot Defense

Turns out some­one at the Vat­i­can called some­one at the
Dioce­san offices back in 2004 telling them to sell to Fol­lieri. That’s
it. No one can remem­ber who made the call. No one can remem­ber who took
the call. For all we know Fol­lieri filled his mouth with cot­ton balls
and did his best Mar­lon Brando imi­ta­tion from the pay phone across the street.

The Arch­dio­ce­ses in Boston, New York, Newark and else­where told Fol­lieri they had enough bridges thank you very much, but poor Grandpa Joe was con­fused and started lend­ing him priests and giv­ing him the keys to the beach house.

How could any­one imag­ine that Fol­lieri was a crook? He seemed like any
other Mother Teresa choir boy with his $10,000 suits, New York pent­house,
heroin habit, con­victed mob asso­ciates, San Tropez week­ends and expensively-maintained Hol­ly­wood girl­friend. “Nobody was aware of prob­lems with Mr. Fol­lieri or his com­pany at that time.” Yeah right. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody. And I’m the widow of the late John Paul II, recently deceased Pres­i­dent of the Vat­i­can, with frozen assets in Nige­ria I’d like your help in secur­ing. Please email me back at your ear­li­est con­ve­nience Andy Wal­ton, I know you won’t be disappointed.