KANSAS CITY (MO)
Reuters
By Kevin Murphy
KANSAS CITY, Missouri | Thu Feb 16, 2012
(Reuters) – The Roman Catholic bishop in Kansas City has asked a court to dismiss charges he failed to report suspected child abuse by a priest on grounds he was not mandated to do so.
Bishop Robert Finn, leader of the 133,000-member Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, is scheduled to go on trial in September in Missouri’s Jackson County Circuit Court on charges he failed to inform authorities for months that Father Shawn Ratigan had child pornography on his laptop computer.
Ratigan pleaded not guilty to felony child pornography charges last year. Finn, the highest-ranking Catholic official ever to face U.S. criminal charges in a child sexual abuse case, and the diocese both pleaded not guilty in October. The cover-up charge carries a penalty of up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
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