UNITED STATES
CNN
By Greg Botelho, CNN
(CNN)Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn, who remained on the job for years after becoming the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official convicted in connection with the church’s long-running sex abuse scandal, the Vatican announced Tuesday.
Finn, who led the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, was found guilty in 2012 of failure to report suspected child abuse.
The case was tried by a judge instead of by jury because prosecutors wanted to protect the young victims’ anonymity.
Finn was convicted of one count but not a misdemeanor charge he’d also faced. He was put on two years’ probation but was not forced to spend time in jail or pay a fine, according to the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Two charges against his diocese were dropped. …
Candida Moss — a professor at Notre Dame, a Catholic university in Indiana — said it “doesn’t look very urgent” that a decision came down only now, nearly three years after the conviction and five months after O’Malley’s comments. Several factors may have played a role in the delay, including views from lawyers or power players at the Vatican, who may be reluctant to cast blame at high-level officials who don’t report allegations quickly enough to government authorities.
But the timing of the announcement may make sense given that it comes weeks after Francis came under fire for the installation of a new bishop in Chile, Juan Barros, despite protesters’ claims he was complicit in sexual abuse cases there.
“It kind of shook Francis’ reputation,” said Moss. “Having this resignation and putting right one of the more visible injustices on this, especially in the U.S., I think this is a typical Francis way to reinstall confidence.” …
To that point, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org asked for more elaboration than the Vatican’s one-line announcement that Francis accepted the resignation “in accordance with … Canon Law.”
Anne Doyle, from the watchdog group that documents the Catholic church’s abuse crisis, called Finn’s removal “a good step but just the beginning.”
“The pope must show that this decision represents a meaningful shift in papal practice — that it signals a new era in bishop accountability,” Doyle said. “… 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.”
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