Gradilone is…
BY Jennifer Warren
Monsignor Thomas Gradilone, the former priest at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in Forest Hills who was suspected of misdirecting millions of dollars in church funds last fall, has returned to the United States, the Daily News reported.
Gradilone is now living and performing private masses at the St. Margaret Mary rectory in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn though he declined to comment on his case at his lawyers request, the paper said.
The diocese sent Gradilone to a Catholic retreat center in Canada last fall before the $2 million in missing funds was revealed to the Queens district attorney’s office and his parish.
Official charges have not been filed by the district attorney and the investigation is still ongoing, said office spokeswoman Betsy Herzog.
Gradilone made front-page headlines last year when Thomas Daily, the bishop of the Brooklyn/Queens Diocese, addressed parishioners and told them of the suspicions surrounding their pastor.
Daily said he felt compelled to make the information public because of Gradilone’s “unwillingness to provide more concrete reasons for his erratic behavior.”
Gradilone was a much adored priest in a congregation of about 2,900 families in Queens. Members have described him as a generous and kind-hearted man who never turned away a needy person.
