By Deb Peterson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
August 18, 2011
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/deb-peterson/article_6a9b793c-c934-11e0-95f0-001a4bcf6878.html
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| Bishop Robert Finn |
FINN INN: St. Louis native and embattled Kansas
City Bishop Robert Finn, whose resignation has
been called for by the
Kansas City Star, will lead a workshop in Jeff City on Oct. 1
on the subject of ... the media.
Finn, who has been bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese
since 2005, is scheduled to lead a panel at the annual statewide
Missouri
Catholic Conference. The workshop's title: "Catholic Press: A
Tool for the New Evangalization."
A website regarding the conference says Finn will talk about how
Catholic news outlets compare "to the secular media in methodology
and goals." Finn is a former editor of The St. Louis Review, the
weekly newspaper of the St. Louis Archdiocese.
Finn's "presentation will suggest how we can be more savvy
consumers of media and ways in which the Catholic press can better
realize its power and potential in the church."
Finn has been embroiled in a scandal in Kansas City involving
the Rev. Shawn Ratigan who was arrested in May and
who has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of taking
indecent photographs of young girls. The most recent of the
pictures allegedly were taken during an Easter egg hunt in
April.
At least two times before that it was suggested that Ratigan had
an inappropriate interest in young girls. Part of the complaint
about Finn's dealing with the Ratigan allegations is that Finn
promised in 2008 that he would immediately report anyone suspected
of being a pedophile to law enforcement authorities.
That promise was included in a long list of preventive measures
that he agreed to in the wake of his settling lawsuits with 47
plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases for $10 million.
Another workshop at the conference, "What you need to know about
pornography," will be headed by Robert Furey, a
St. Louis therapist who helps sexually troubled clergy. Furey also
directs a church-operated center for pedophile priests in rural
Missouri that was criticized last year in a two-part KSDK
(Channel 5) series.
Contact: dpeterson@post-dispatch.com
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