Bishop’s conviction intensifies calls to step down
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Calls for Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal.
Soon after a Missouri judge found Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled “Bishop Finn Must Go.”
Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.
Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.
“Now that our justice system says he’s guilty, he has lost his ability to lead our diocese,” Patricia Rotert, a Catholic church member in Kansas City, said Friday. “He’s lost his credibility. There is turmoil and angst around him and I don’t think he can bring people together.”
Finn’s attorneys would not comment on the bishop’s future in the church, saying it was a legal matter.
However, Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph spokesman Jack Smith indicated that Finn wasn’t going anywhere.
“The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court,” Smith said in an emailed statement Friday.
Finn’s conviction comes four years after the church paid $10 million to settle 47 pending sexual abuse claims against the diocese and 12 of its priests. When announcing that deal in 2008, Finn apologized for the abuse that occurred at the hands of current and former clergy members, and promised that steps were being taken to make sure such abuse never happened again. [More]
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8 Comments
There seens to be an “unwrittem law” between the vatican and the united states, a line in the sand, Rome says, “You don’t touch my Bishops.” Priests you can put in jail, but not Bishops. The judge that tried this case had to struggle with how do we both look good; I found him guilty but I can’t put him in jail. I would have liked to be a fly on the ceiling and listened to the judge and lawyers work this out. If this was a priest, the Bisops would have thrown him to the sharks. The Bishop should show some humility and respect for the victums and the people of God and see that he must step down, which I hope he will do. Go work in the soup Kitchen Yah! I’m hoping some Bishops get him aside and tell him to smell the coffee, its over, To keep him in is a slap in the face to the people of God. How quickly they got rid of Groshell, “Damage control.” But Groshell is not a bishop.
And that bishop who drove under the influence with his mother in the back seat should step down too.
Any professional who did what Robert Finn did would face professional discipline and loss of license. Unfortunately, the Catholic hierarchy does not take the conviction at all seriously, even though it’s a crime of flagrant moral turpitude.
We are always so fast to point the finger! Who caused the problem in the first place? It was not Bishop Finn! It is to bad that a few priests who have caused the problems obviously did not understand their vows when they became a priest has caused so much turmoil within the Catholic Church. It is those who did not keep their vows that need to be removed and turned over to the law. It is not up to us to “PUNISH”. We should be on our knees praying and thanking God for the faithful priests who have kept their vows and obedience to the Bishop.
Unfortunately the scandal is more about the cover up than the crimes. There are relatively few people who have the expectation that sinful behavior is not going to be present everywhere, even in the church. The biggest problem was simply that the Bishops covered it up by moving these priests instead of exposing them and addressing the issue. This is the reason for so many lawsuits, the cover up is what is most disgraceful. To harm children in any way is a terrible, horrible thing. To know about, cover it up, pretend it’s not happening and then allow more children to be hurt by the same people is disgraceful. There are many good priests. But this issue remains an issue because thoose who had, and have the power to protect did not excercise that power. Bishop Finn should be accutely aware that we live in a time where any abuse of children cannot be tolerated. From recent history he should also be accutely aware that ignoring the problem or covering it up is unacceptable. The best thing for the church, in moving forward, is to say that and live by it – even for Bishops.
To give further cause to the reason for Bishop Finn to resign is his response to the person who notified Finn of the problem: “When the computer systems manager of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese told her bishop, Robert Finn, that she had found lewd images of children on a priest’s laptop, he replied, “Sometimes boys will be boys,” according to sworn testimony that appears in court documents filed Thursday.” This is why the problem continues to plague the church.
Bishop Finn should be willling to say that the same way others are treated is what he will do. As someone convicted of this crime he can no longer meet the requirements of the Charter for the Protection of CHildren. This should be enforced or the Bishops should say it was a document they never intended to follow. If he had followed the guidelines of that Charter, he would not be in the mess he is in today. Rev. Reese is right in the article, the Bishops created this mess and it is because they failed to take ownership that we continue to have such a scandal today.
A bishop must be beyond reproach in order to animate and guide the disciples in his church. Finn should excerise the humility that he preaches and step down and assume another position of service to the community of disciples.