KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star
By LAURA BAUER and JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star
Bishop Robert Finn stood before a circuit court judge last week and said he was sorry for the pain that children in his diocese had suffered.
Then, moments before the judge sentenced him to two years of probation for failing to report suspected child abuse, Finn said he was grateful the case was over.
Yet child and family advocates, as well as sexual abuse therapists and investigators, say they don’t want it to be over. They want the impact of Finn’s guilty verdict, and the frank dialogue it has spurred, to create a culture where adults finally stand up for children who can’t speak for themselves.
It’s not just Kansas City, where Finn and other church officials failed to immediately report a priest who took pornographic pictures of young girls.
It’s Philadelphia, where a monsignor was sentenced in July for covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests.
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