KANSAS CITY (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave
Kevin O’Brien
Fr. Shawn Ratigan has been sentenced to 50 years in Federal prison without the possibility of parole for molesting and taking explicit photographs of girls as young as age 2.
You can read about it here – but the Kansas City Star goes into some detail about the nature of the crimes, and it’s not easy to stomach.
At the time the story broke, when it was revealed that Ratigan’s bishop, Robert Finn, mishandled the case and showed a flagrant disregard for the victims and their families, Bill Donohue of the Catholic Defense League downplayed Ratigan’s crimes and asserted that no child pornography was involved. The priest was just a shutter bug who liked to take photos of young girls and their crotches, or so Donohue implied.
In the perfect world, Bill Donohue would read the Star’s description of the photos Ratigan took and the physical contact he had with his helpless victims and would issue a heart-felt apology for the shameful way he spun the story with lies and half-truths, not to “defend” the Catholic Church, but merely as a knee-jerk way of running interference for Bishop Finn and his criminal priest. In fact, Donohue didn’t have to wait for the sentencing – much of what Ratigan did was described in detail in a report paid for by the diocese of Kansas City, a report Donohue ignored in order to spin his web of unrighteous indignation.
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