KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Olympian
By BILL DRAPER | Associated Press • Published September 07, 2012
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Calls for Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal.
Soon after a Missouri judge found Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled “Bishop Finn Must Go.”
Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.
Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.
“Now that our justice system says he’s guilty, he has lost his ability to lead our diocese,” Kansas City Catholic Patricia Rotert said Friday. “He’s lost his credibility. There is turmoil and angst around him and I don’t think he can bring people together.” …
“I said for years that we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in today if about 30 bishops had said ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry, I take full responsibility and I resign,'” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “I think we’re at a state in the life of the church when a bishop is convicted of a misdemeanor, found guilty of not doing what he was supposed to do, I think he should resign for the good of the diocese and the good of the church.”
Support for Finn’s resignation is far from unanimous. Some say they agree he made a mistake, but it’s not one that should force him out, especially with even more stringent safeguards in place to protect children.
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