MISSOURI
The New York Times

By JOHN ELIGON and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: December 2, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the three months since Bishop Robert W. Finn became the first American prelate convicted for failing to report a pedophile priest, lay people and victims’ advocates have repeatedly called for his resignation.

Now, recent interviews and a private survey by a company working for the Roman Catholic diocese here show for the first time that a significant number of the bishop’s own priests have lost confidence in him.

Bishop Finn, who oversees the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, is serving two ears of court supervised probation after his conviction in September on a single misdemeanor count. The survey by Church Development, a consulting firm the diocese hired to run a capital campaign, was of 40 priests. In the 32 responses obtained by The New York Times, half of them…