KANSAS CITY (MO)
dotCommonweal
May 29, 2012
Posted by David Gibson
That would be “Bishop-In-Name-Only.” I ask because NCR’s Joshua McElwee dug into a seemingly boilerplate announcement of “canonical assignments” posted at the newspaper of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Friday afternoon and discovered that Bishop Robert Finn had shifted — apparently — some of his authority to a newly-created “Episcopal Vicar with Special Mandate,” who is Fr. Patrick Rush.
The move was made in anticipation of Bishop Finn’s trial this fall in Jackson County on charges of failing to report one of his priests, Fr. Shawn Ratigan, who was suspected of possessing child pornography and perhaps of abusing children.
Finn has already signed away some of his authority in Clay County (another part of the diocese) on sex abuse and personnel policies in order to avoid trial on similar charges there. (See Nicholas Cafardi’s “A Cherished Accommodation” [subscribers only].) Friday’s announcement also transferred another official tainted by the Ratigan case.
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