People give you money not because you don’t have any but because of what they know or think you will do with it, the rector of then-struggling Loyola Academy in Wilmette used to say.  Here’s a story of what some did with what they were given:

A married Near North Side couple claiming to be Kenyan refugees whose lives were in danger managed to scam more than $800,000 from an order of Carmelite sisters in Wisconsin, federal agents allege.

Angela Purity Martin-Mulu, 35, and Edward Bosire, 39, made their sale to the Carmelite monastery in Pewaukee, Wis. due west of Milwaukee and to a lesser extent to one on River Road, in NW suburban Des Plaines.  So much the worse for their benefactors.

Mike English was the rector at Loyola.  In 1959 he came on the job to save a failing institution and did so, after enduring his first sleepless nights as a Jesuit in 35 or so years.

I had my own experiences as a priest, including two summer months as fill-in pastor in Marengo, Iowa, in 1963.  One couple came to our door on our quiet small-town street with a sad story, unfortunately bringing a small boy in with them, allegedly their son.  I asked a few questions, and the kid said something that killed their story.  They left giving the kid what-for, pulling him by his ear.

Msgr. Ignatius McDermott would walk Skid Row in Chicago with meal tickets.  The most forgiving, non-condemnatory man in the world, he never turned away a drunk who wanted to try to reclaim himself at McD’s Haymarket Center on Madison Street.  He knew what he was doing with money people gave him.  Not all do-gooders do.