KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
Posted by Mike Hunter on August 03, 2012
Now that Fr. Ratigan has pled guilty to child porn, Bishop Finn should drop his legal maneuver claiming the photos are not child porn.
In late April, without fanfare or public notice, Finn and his lawyers filed a motion saying that the pictures Fr. Ratigan had stored on his computer were not child porn, despite the fact that they included close-up shots of the genitalia of young girls. According to Finn, these pictures did not meet the criteria for “obscenity,” and therefore were not porn.
It defies common sense and common decency for one of Finn’s priests to admit in court that he took child porn photos while Finn is in another court saying they’re not child porn.
Here’s why this is so awful.
First, this desperate and disingenuous move by the bishop rubs even more salt into the already-deep and still-fresh wounds of the families of Fr. Ratigan’s victims.
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.