Arrest Warrant Issued for Priest : Simi Valley: The D.A. wants to question Father David Piroli about the $60,000 in cash found after his drug arrest. He is missing.

An arrest warrant was issued Friday for a missing Simi Valley priest wanted for questioning about $60,000 found after his Hollywood drug arrest in May, a church official said.

G. Patrick Ziemann, auxiliary bishop for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said he hopes that Father David Piroli will come forward and answer questions for Ventura County investigators and archdiocese officials.

“I hope that he knows . . . that we’re willing and eager to talk with him and eager to help him,” Ziemann said.

“It’s very bizarre, very bewildering to all of us,” said Ziemann, who oversees the archdiocese’s churches in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. “People are upset because there’s not enough facts being given, because he’s not around to ask questions of. People make their own judgments, which are premature.”

Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve J. Fox said prosecutors have not filed charges but they want to question Piroli, 36, of St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley about the large amounts of cash and church collection envelopes that were found in his rooms and in his church car.

Piroli was arrested May 29 as he sat in the church’s white 1990 Chevrolet Lumina outside a Sears store in Hollywood. Store employees had complained to police that Piroli was loitering.

Inside the car, police found traces of rock and powder cocaine in two matchboxes and two folded dollar bills, but said there was not enough of the drug to warrant prosecution.

Police also found about $10,000 in small bills. The money was turned over to the archdiocese, which is auditing the church’s books to learn whether the cash came from parishioners’ donations.

Police said that along with the money they found collection envelopes from Sacred Heart Church in Saticoy. Piroli served as assistant pastor at Sacred Heart for four years before his routine reassignment to St. Peter Claver about two years ago.

Church employees who searched Piroli’s apartment after his arrest found another $50,000 in small bills scattered throughout the rooms--$5,000 of which they used to pay his bondsman when he skipped bail on June 3 and disappeared.

St. Peter Claver collection envelopes, some torn open, were found with that money, Ziemann has said.

“At this point, we have not found anything to indicate he was selling narcotics,” Fox said. “It’s turning into more of a theft issue than a drug issue.”

Church officials have been cooperating with the investigation, Fox and Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. said.

“We would like to get to the bottom of the situation, in terms of where the money came from,” O’Neill said.