{"id":242508,"date":"2026-03-11T11:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T07:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=242508"},"modified":"2026-03-11T11:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T07:13:14","slug":"pope-leo-dismisses-san-diego-bishop-accused-of-stealing-250000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/242508\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo dismisses San Diego bishop accused of stealing $250,000"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pope Leo has accepted the resignation of a Catholic bishop in San Diego who was arrested by ‌local authorities on suspicion of stealing $250,000 from his congregation, Reuters<\/a> writes.<\/p>\n

Bishop Emanuel Hana Shaleta had led the small Chaldean Catholic community in the California city since 2017. He ⁠pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of embezzlement and money laundering at a hearing on Monday, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n

San Diego Deputy District Attorney Joel Madero said the alleged crimes took place in 2024 and were reported by a church employee who noticed the missing funds.<\/p>\n

Hana Shaleta was arrested on March 5 at San Diego’s international airport while attempting to leave the US, according to ⁠a sheriff’s office statement.<\/p>\n

The bishop’s lawyer said at Monday’s hearing that Hana Shaleta was taking a planned trip ⁠to Germany.<\/p>\n

Chaldean Catholics recognize the authority of the pope but worship according to an eastern ⁠Christian liturgical rite.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo has accepted the resignation of a Catholic bishop in San Diego who was arrested by ‌local authorities on suspicion of stealing $250,000 from his congregation, Reuters writes. Bishop Emanuel Hana Shaleta had led the small Chaldean Catholic community in the California city since 2017. He ⁠pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of embezzlement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":242505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,43,98,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","category-other-en","category-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242509,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242508\/revisions\/242509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}