UNITED STATES
Voice of America
The Vatican said Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a U.S. bishop convicted for failing to report a priest who collected lewd photographs of minor children.
Bishop Robert Finn stepped down Tuesday as head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri in the Midwestern U.S.
Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the United States to be convicted in connection with a suspected case of child abuse involving a member of the clergy.
The Vatican did not give a specific reason for Finn’s resignation but said the pontiff accepted it under canon law. …
Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org, an online abuse resource group, said in a statement that Finn’s resignation a “a good step but just a beginning,” and called on the pontiff to publicly state that he removed Finn for failing to protect children.
“The pope must show that this decision represents a meaningful shift in papal practice, that it shows a new era in bishop accountability,” Barrett Doyle said. “That would be unprecedented, and it would send a bracing message to bishops and religious superiors worldwide that a new era has begun.”
Francis is also under pressure to remove Bishop Juan Barros of Chile, who is accused of shielding the Reverend Fernando Karadima, a notorious pedophile priest.
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