KANSAS CITY (MO)
WSBT
Carey Gillam
Reuters
(Reuters) – A Catholic bishop in Kansas City must stand trial on charges that he failed to report a priest found with pornographic pictures of young girls on his Church computer to police, a judge said on Thursday.
Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, faces one misdemeanor charge that he failed to tell authorities that Church officials had found disturbing pictures of unclothed little girls that appeared to have been taken by a popular local priest, Father Patrick Ratigan.
His trial is set to start September 24.
Finn’s lawyers had asked that the case against him be dismissed and argued in a hearing last week that Missouri statutes requiring clergy, school teachers and others to report suspected child sexual abuse were “vague.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.