BOGUS PRIEST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1089, 29 August 1912, Page 4

BOGUS PRIEST.

There was a big international gathering in the Milan Assize Court, last month, in expectation of the trial ol the pseudo Monsiguor John Baptist Giudri, who has acquired notoriety all over Europe by his clever and daring frauds on Roman Catholic clergy, monasteries, and converts. Giudri was arrested early in the present year in the vicinity of the Colosseum at Rome, as he was driving in a carriage and pair decked out with purple paraphernalia, to lunch with a Cardinal. Giudri thereupon coolly telephoned from the central police station praying his Eminence to hold him excused by reason of an unforseen urgent summons from the Government.

The police had been put on his track owing to information received from the Archbishop’s house at Westminster, where Gindri had shortly before tried to hoax Bishop-Auxiliary Butt with ecclesiastical certificates stolen from Moasignor Gindro in Milan. He had also imposed on the Servile Fathers in Fulham road, and several other London communities. In France the pseudo Monsignor had preached before the Hierarchy in some of the most historic cathedrals, where, moreover, he frequently celebrated High Mass, although he has never been a priest. He delivered such clever addresses in various convents that the good Sisters were moved to tears. He invariably begged that his addresses might be privately printed, and then swindled his dupes out of thousands of pounds. A few days before his arrest he managed to get himself photographed in full canonicals at the Vatican in a group representing Pope Pius X., surrounded by the Papan Court.

Gindri has made a more or less full confession, alleging in his defence that he invariably robbed the richer members of the Church

in order to befriend the poorer clergy and sisterhoods. He is being legally defended by the smartest lawyers in Italy, The prosecuting counsel obtained an adjournment of the case until November, on the ground that the false Monsignor was the most enigmatical criminal who had come before the Italian Court of Justsce for many years. “We think it quite possible,” remarked counsel, “that Gindri may be the famous Cassanova himself reincarnate.” The judge directed that the prisoner should be placed for several months under the scientific observation of experts of the Rombroso School of Criminology.