UNITED STATES
Crux
By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter April 21, 2015
Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri, finds himself without a job Tuesday, as Pope Francis accepted the embattled prelate’s resignation three years after his conviction for failing to report suspected child abuse.
The Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, SNAP, called the move “encouraging,” but said there is still more work to do, describing the resignation as “a very tiny drop of reform in an enormous bucket of horror.”
“Finn’s departure will, in the short term, make some adults happier. By itself, it won’t, in the long term, make many kids safer,” the statement read.
A group that monitors bishops agreed that Finn’s removal was a “good step,” but called on Pope Francis to elaborate on the reasons for Finn’s dismissal.
“But what no pope has done to date is publicly confirm that he removed a culpable bishop because of his failure to make children’s safety his first priority. We urge Pope Francis to issue such a statement immediately,” Anne Doyle, a spokesman for BishopAccountability.org, said in a statement. “That would be unprecedented, and it would send a bracing message to bishops and religious superiors worldwide that a new era has begun.” …
Pope Francis is currently considering a proposal from his commission on sex abuse dealing with bishop accountability. The commission has discussed Finn’s case, as well as that of the newly installed Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid of Osorno, Chile, who is tied to one of that country’s most notorious abusers.
A member of that commission, Marie Collins, told Crux in an interview published on Monday that it was time for Finn to go.
“I cannot understand how Bishop Finn is still in position, when anyone else with a conviction that he has could not run a Sunday school in a parish. He wouldn’t pass a background check,” she said. “I don’t know how anybody like that could be left in charge of a diocese.”
But some are standing by Finn.
“Bishop Finn, we love you, your pastoral heart,” a statement from a group called Justice for Bishop Finn read.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.