KANSAS CITY (MO)
Reuters

By Carey Gillam

Mon Apr 9, 2012

(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 Shawn 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.”