KANSAS CITY (MO)
Directors and Officers Liability
While charges and stories of priests abusing children have been surfacing and being suppressed across the country for decades, a criminal prosecution of clergy engaged in cover-ups is rare. Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic leader facing criminal charges in connection with alleged child sexual abuse.
Bishop Finn is charged for failing to report a priest who kept pornographic pictures of girl children under the diocese on his computer. The defense of Bishop Finn argued that charges against him be dropped as he had no duty to report to the authorities of the alleged abuse by another priest. But, Jackson County Circuit Judge John Terence rejected the arguments and held that Bishop Finn had a duty to report after church officials found pictures of naked girl children on the computer of Father Shawn Ratigan.
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