Stealing from the church.......

I've had a long week to say the least....So I apologize for this blog coming so late. Monday was Valentines Day and Tuesday I was stuck at the airport from 8 til 8 and I just finished my audit for this week and this is my first opportunity to share some information with you guys.....

Just recently got assigned to a group project in class and my case study is more interesting than I imagined......Here are a few of the details........There is an executive committee at First Street church....This committee is repsonsible for all the finances that come in and out of the church....welll someone has been stealing. Every Sunday. For over a year!!!! How much did they take??????? Lets say north of $23k....Finally the head of the church decides to do something about it and confronts his committee....The thief is on the committee and she is feeling a lot of pressure from the head of the church, so she lies and throws an absent committee member under the bus......All this time she has been purposely having someone else record a lower amount on the books and she would take the excess and go down the street and give the money to a homeless shelter.......Now isnt this a trip!! You're stealing money from the church to give to the poor!!!!!!! That almost sounds like and oxymoron!!!! Anyhow the case ends right there but asks a few questions, that I want to ask you.......

She calls up the man she accused and tells him no to show up to the next meeting because she is going to come clean.....My question is........ would you show up???

Second question.....Lets say she does actually come clean, (just because she is a thief doesnt mean she is a liar too...yeah right) and gets fired from her position and is ordered to pay the money back.....Is this fair?? What do you think??

Since this is ethics I have to say that her intentions were good but obviously the way she went about doing things were all wrong......Most of the time this is always the case when you have to make an ethical decision. Someone will be hurt for a greater good, or implied good. Who is to say that the outcome is good, or just not the lesser of two evils?? Lets say she asked for the money to give to the church but was turned down. The homeless shelter would still need it, she has been taking it for a year so obviously the church didn't need it. So why would she have to pay it back?? Is that greed on the churches behalf?? Is that ethical??

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