When trust breaks down slowly over time in ways that no one noticed, there is a certain kind of silence that falls over a religious institution. That silence is being felt right now at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh. It began in a Beaver County Walmart’s baseball card aisle, of all places.
Before being arrested, The Very Rev. Aidan Smith was the dean of one of Pittsburgh’s most important Episcopal cathedrals. He was arrested in late February after Walmart security noticed that he had a history of stealing. He wasn’t careless about it. Court records show that Smith went to the store at least five days in a row and walked out without paying after putting baseball card packs under his clothes and into a cardboard box. He was caught leaving with 27 packs on the day he was shot. Walmart put a value of just over $1,100 on the stolen goods.
In the end, the charge was lowered from a felony to a summary offense. Smith admitted guilt, paid a $201 fine, and didn’t say anything in public. His lawyer refused to say anything. After Walmart, things seemed to end quickly and quietly on paper. But by that time, something much more complicated had shown up.
Because of the arrest, cathedral officials started to pay more attention to what was and wasn’t on the property. What they found made them feel bad. Dozens of holy items, like silver crosses, chalices, and communion plates, had gone missing. Some of them were found for sale on eBay. The items seemed to have been moved online by Smith before anyone noticed they were gone. When people from the cathedral went to his home in Ambridge, they found 91 artifacts that had been lost. They confirmed that others could not be found. They were bought and sold already.
Take a moment to think about that detail. These weren’t just pretty things that were sitting in a storage room. In a religious community, things like chalices and communion plates have meaning because they are used in the most important religious ceremonies. Selling them quietly on eBay shows that he is either very detached or very desperate, and no one around him seems to have noticed at the time.
Smith quit in March, which was about one month after he was arrested at Walmart. While he is no longer dean, he is still an ordained Episcopal priest. This is important because the church is still going through its own process of disciplining priests. A review board made up of people from five Episcopal dioceses is looking into whether Smith took and sold church property without permission. He could be kicked out of the priesthood if the board finds against him. The case could also be sent to the police to be looked into as a possible crime.
In a letter sent to the people of the diocese after Smith was arrested, Bishop Ketlen Solak asked them to pray for him, his family, and the congregation as they dealt with this. That appeal has some truth to it; the diocese is truly sad, not pretending to be sad. The prayers don’t stop the questions, though. Andrew Muhl, who is in charge of communications at the Cathedral, said that a decision from the disciplinary board is coming soon.
People all over the diocese were really interested in this story, not the baseball cards, even though that’s what everyone used. It’s the space between what Smith seemed to be and what the evidence suggests was going on behind that. A dean of a cathedral. The diocese didn’t say why the person was on administrative leave in January. A pattern of theft at Walmart that goes back almost a week. And somewhere in the middle, there was a quiet attempt to turn holy things into cash.
The whole picture is still coming together. But people who follow this story think that the Walmart arrest was less of a cause and more of a moment of exposure—the start of a longer, quieter falling apart that could finally be seen.
