Francis appoints new bishop for scandal-rocked US diocese of Kansas City

By Joshua J. Mcelwee
National Catholic Reporter
September 15, 2015

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/francis-appoints-new-bishop-scandal-rocked-us-diocese-kansas-city

Vatican City

Pope Francis has appointed a new bishop for the diocese in the U.S. heartland that became an international symbol of church failings in the sexual abuse crisis, less than five months after the unusual resignation of its former leader.

Bishop James Johnston, until now the bishop of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese in southern Missouri, has been appointed to replace resigned Bishop Robert Finn in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese in the same state.

The move, made relatively quickly for the Vatican following Finn’s April 21 resignation, brings Johnston some 160 miles north to try and rebuild a diocese that was rocked for more than three years by a scandal that eventually saw Finn found guilty of a criminal misdemeanor for mishandling an abusive priest. 

The appointment also comes exactly one week before Francis lands for his first visit to the United States, a possible signal that the pontiff was looking to bring to a close an incredibly difficult period for the diocese before his visit to the country.

Johnston, who had been the bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau since 2008, is a native of Knoxville, Tenn., and did his seminary studies first at Saint Meinrad Seminary in Indiana before earning a licentiate in canon law at The Catholic University of America. He entered religious life after a brief career as an electric engineer.

Finn, age 62, had led the Kansas City diocese since 2005 but made an unusually early retirement for Catholic bishops in April. He has not as yet been assigned a new diocese nor given a new leadership role in the church.

The former bishop’s leadership had long been under question in the Missouri diocese, at least since his September 2012 conviction of a misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse in the case of a now-former diocesan priest who was producing child pornography.

Because of that incident, Finn served a two-year suspended sentence in Jackson County, Mo., and struck a deal later that year with a Clay County, Mo., judge to avoid a similar charge by entering a diversion compliance agreement that included regular meetings with the county prosecutor for five years.

A statement from the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese said Johnston would be introduced during a press conference at the local chancery Tuesday morning.

The statement said Johnston would make brief remarks to the public at the event. It also noted that the new bishop was known in Springfield-Cape Girardeau for encouraging vocations to the priesthood, helping establish the southern Missouri office of Catholic Charities, and supporting the Catholic Worker movement.

At the U.S. bishops’ conference, Johnston is currently the bishops’ liaison to the National Council of Catholic Women and has previously served as a member of the bishops’ Committee on Child and Youth Protection.

Before being appointed a bishop in 2008, Johnston had served as chancellor and moderator of the curia in Louisville. That archdiocese was and is still led by Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, the current head of the U.S. bishops’ conference.​

An email sent from the Kansas City chancery to the priests of the diocese said their new bishop was “clearing his schedule” in order to spend time with them during their annual Oct. 5-8 priest retreat and was hoping the priests would join the group.

A brief biography of Johnston provided in that email highlights his membership in the Knights of Columbus and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. It also notes that he and two priests were awarded the Interior Department’s Citizens Award for Bravery in 2005 for helping rescue a family in danger of falling over a waterfall in Glacier National Park.

This story is being updated.