According to the 12-5-2007 Hartford Courant, a Roman Catholic priest, with singularly full control over his church's finances, managed to live the good life of his financially comfortable parishioners in Connecticut's "gold coast" by stealing more than $1 million in church funds.

The Catholic Church is a slow learner.  One would think that a 2000 year old organization would in time, come to understand good governance.  And even though non-profit management and governance in particular is not a 2000 year old activity, (although Catholic institutions were indeed some of the first on the scene (e.g. orphanages and hospitals) there's enough knowledge and experience to know that one can't simply turn over all the finances to the "guy" in charge and expect that temptations and actions on those temptations aren't going to occur. 

Good nonprofit governance would establish checks and balances, accountability and processes and policies and systems to prevent a situation like this from happening.  I mean really, even at the local level there were surely parishioners who knew better than to turn over the record keeping and receipts to the same person.  The standard for duty of care says: if this were my business, what would I do?