Kansas City Catholic bishop charged in child porn case

[teddybear]

It is long past time something like this happened. These bishops need to take responsibility for their cover ups. I hope he spends some time in jail! Wanna bet that if they try anything like this, he'll escape to Rome like Cardinal Law of Boston did?

http://news.yahoo.com/kc-bishop-charged ... 23369.html

KC bishop charged for not bringing porn to police

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City's Catholic bishop has become the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children after he and his diocese waited five months to tell police about hundreds of images of child pornography discovered on a priest's computer, officials said Friday.

Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese have pleaded not guilty on one count each of failing to report suspected child abuse.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and the diocese were required under state law to report the discovery to police because the images gave them reason to believe a child had been abused.

"Now that the grand jury investigation has resulted in this indictment, my office will pursue this case vigorously," Baker said. "I want to ensure there are no future failures to report resulting in other unsuspecting victims."

The indictment, handed down Oct. 6 but sealed because Finn was out of the country, says the bishop failed to report suspicions against the priest from Dec. 16, 2010, when the photos were discovered, to May 11, 2011, when the diocese turned them over to police.

Finn denied any wrongdoing in a statement Friday and said he had begun work to overhaul the diocese's reporting policies and act on key findings of a diocese-commissioned investigation into its practices.

"Today, the Jackson County Prosecutor issued these charges against me personally and against the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph," said Finn, who officials said was not under arrest. "For our part, we will meet these announcements with a steady resolve and a vigorous defense."

Finn faces a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine if convicted of the misdemeanor. The diocese also faces a $1,000 fine.

After the Catholic sex abuse scandal erupted in 2002, grand juries in several regions reviewed how bishops handled claims against priests. However, most of the allegations were decades old and far beyond the statute of limitations.

Until Finn was indicted, no U.S. Catholic bishop had been criminally charged over how he responded to abuse claims, although some bishops had struck deals with local authorities to avoid prosecution against their dioceses.

A former secretary for clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Monsignor William Lynn, was charged in February with child endangerment. A grand jury had released a report accusing the archdiocese of keeping some credibly accused clergy in church jobs where they had access to children. Lynn has pleaded not guilty.

The grand jury report in Philadelphia and the case in Kansas City have raised questions about how closely other dioceses are following the national discipline policy the U.S. bishops adopted in 2002. Church leaders had promised to remove all credibly accused clergy from church work.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops child protection officers insisted dioceses have been taking swift action in abuse cases and that lapses have been rare.

Terry McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org, which manages a public database of records on clergy abuse cases, called Friday's indictment especially important because it involved a recent case. He said the charge being a misdemeanor makes it no less significant.

"The taboo against acknowledging that bishops are responsible in these matters has been challenged," McKiernan said.

Finn acknowledged earlier this year that a parish principal had raised concerns in May 2010 that the Rev. Shawn Ratigan was behaving inappropriately around children, but that he didn't read the principal's written report until this spring.

Ratigan was charged in May with three state child pornography counts, and in June with 13 federal counts of producing, possessing and attempting to produce child porn. He has pleaded not guilty and remains jailed.

After receiving the principal's concerns in 2010, Monsignor Robert Murphy, the diocese's vicar general, spoke with Ratigan about setting boundaries with children. He then gave Finn a verbal summary of the concerns and his meeting with the priest.

Last December, a computer technician found on Ratigan's laptop hundreds of what he called "disturbing" images of children, most of them fully clothed with the focus on their crotch areas, and a series of pictures of a 2- to 3-year-old girl with her genitals exposed.

Diocese officials reported the photos to Murphy, who did not report them to authorities and instead called a police captain who is a member of the diocese's independent review board and described a single photo of a nude child that was not sexual in nature.

Without viewing the photo, the captain said he was advised that although such a picture might meet the definition of child pornography, it probably wouldn't be investigated or prosecuted. It was not until this May that Murphy told police Ratigan's laptop had contained hundreds of photos.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, on suggested Friday that other individuals should be charged along with Finn.

"Charging only Finn might allow some to assume that he's the root of the crisis," Clohessy said. "He's not. If Finn died tomorrow, there will remain a very unhealthy, secretive church hierarchy in Kansas City. That's the bigger issue."

[doggie]

I think the covering up is what gets me. Most of it happened years ago but here we are only a year ago. glad bot hare getting nailed for it.

[mirele]

I think the covering up is what gets me. Most of it happened years ago but here we are only a year ago. glad bot hare getting nailed for it.

That's what gets me about this case. Obviously Finn didn't care that there'd been years of controversy already, that he should have turned in this priest and let the law deal with him. Nooooo. Instead, he decides to keep doing it the old way, the way that has been proven to be bad.

Throw the book at him--but take away his passport first.

[nuri]

I think the covering up is what gets me. Most of it happened years ago but here we are only a year ago. glad bot hare getting nailed for it.

Exactly. Abuses like these happen in every profession at about the same rate as it does Catholic priests. It's not unique and because my brother is a priest, it hurts when people claim all priests are child molesters. When discovered, they should face the same consequences as anyone else, if the Church wants to heal them spiritually, they can do so alongside the civil courts, not instead of.

The cover-up is the truely horrific part. If this was a school district, or a hospital, etc there would be hell to pay. And so should the Bishops here.

[Austin]

He's probably already bought his plane ticket.

[MaryatHome]

I live in the area, though not his diocese. This has been front page news for months here.

The thing that just pisses me off is the call for another 'system' for detecting and reporting incidents.

Really, bish. You don't need another system, or policy, or board. What you NEED is to follow what you already had in place. I guarantee that had you come forward and done the right thing way back in the spring of 2010 (when you first got the letter from the school principal), or even in December (when the pictures were discovered), there would not be a scandal. There would have been sadness and anger, but had you done the right thing, the Church itself would not be involved in disrepute.

Idiot.

[mirele]

I live in the area, though not his diocese. This has been front page news for months here.

The thing that just pisses me off is the call for another 'system' for detecting and reporting incidents.

Really, bish. You don't need another system, or policy, or board. What you NEED is to follow what you already had in place. I guarantee that had you come forward and done the right thing way back in the spring of 2010 (when you first got the letter from the school principal), or even in December (when the pictures were discovered), there would not be a scandal. There would have been sadness and anger, but had you done the right thing, the Church itself would not be involved in disrepute.

Idiot.

No, what the bishop needs to do is to follow the law. If Shawn Ratigan had been a teacher at a middle school and Finn had been the school superintendent, I can guarantee you heads would have rolled a LONG, LONG, LONG time ago and people would have been in prison. It's only because these guys believe, because they've been ordained to the priesthood, that they are somehow qualitatively different than the rest of us and don't need to follow the law. And yes, if you push hard enough, you'll find these people and their defenders will tell you that being ordained a "priest forever" actually changes a man--even if you can't tell it at the molecular and atomic level. Which means I call bullshit on it.

[Stickers]

The whole system the church has set up to cover for these people is disgusting. I'm very happy one of the cover up-ers is getting exposed.

Then again the way we deal with sex crimes in this country also disgusts me. It's shameful to me that sex crimes against children don't get someone life.

[Guest Anonymous]

This scumbag Bishop will be on a plane to Rome and a job will be created for him that removes him from the public. Out of sight out of mind. He will still probably hold the title of Bishop but won't be able to participate in any Bishop activities for a while, at least until the heat dies down over this case. The Current Pope knew all about these molestation cases going on in the church but ignored them like they never happened. Same with past heads of the church. I hope they all rot in hell the dirty bastards.

[atheistjd]

Exactly. Abuses like these happen in every profession at about the same rate as it does Catholic priests. It's not unique and because my brother is a priest, it hurts when people claim all priests are child molesters. When discovered, they should face the same consequences as anyone else, if the Church wants to heal them spiritually, they can do so alongside the civil courts, not instead of.

The cover-up is the truely horrific part. If this was a school district, or a hospital, etc there would be hell to pay. And so should the Bishops here.

I agree (mostly) but the coverup is exactly what sets priests apart from other professions - most professionals with daily access to and trust of children and their parents do not have a boss who would cover these atrocities up for them. The RC priesthood and all-male hierarchy has obviously become a safe haven, or was in the past, for child molesters. The reason I only agree *mostly* is that when you say "every profession" I have to disagree. There are very few professions where any one person has that much access to, control over (these men are the spiritual go-between between you and god, to these children), and trust of (well, not anymore, but trust me, parents in a strong diocese/parish in the 60s - many would have taken the word of the priest over their own child without blinking, or the children at least had good reasons to believe that's what would have happened) children.

[NurseNell]

Exactly. Abuses like these happen in every profession at about the same rate as it does Catholic priests. It's not unique and because my brother is a priest, it hurts when people claim all priests are child molesters. When discovered, they should face the same consequences as anyone else, if the Church wants to heal them spiritually, they can do so alongside the civil courts, not instead of.

The cover-up is the truely horrific part. If this was a school district, or a hospital, etc there would be hell to pay. And so should the Bishops here.

This.

[ADoyle90815]

The whole system the church has set up to cover for these people is disgusting. I'm very happy one of the cover up-ers is getting exposed.

Then again the way we deal with sex crimes in this country also disgusts me. It's shameful to me that sex crimes against children don't get someone life.

This! I think pedophiles should just get life in prison when they're first caught, as it's been shown over and over again that they can't be fixed. Obviously, this is not some 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old girlfriend, but adults who prey on children.