Follow the Leader

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Now is the time for Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to follow his leader and resign, renounce, and depart.

This moment affords him a saving grace.

Out of the ashes of a criminal conviction could be built a measure of redemption.

Out of the failure to protect the child and not the perpetrator could come course correction.

Out of the wandering in a personal desert, out of the stumbling block of the criminal conviction that trips up any reach to teach moral principle, out of the shroud of shrunken authority could come life – and life abundantly.

This moment, this thin space before 8 PM February 28, if seized, can offer resurrection to a diocese, its people, and the office of bishop.

The drama of a papal resignation, the questions that swirl around it, the building chorus of comment, chatter and clatter about who will emerge from a conclave in the white soutane on front façade of St. Peter’s is a tent of cover for a bishop clinging to the old ways.

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