VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 21, 2015
VATICAN CITY U.S. Bishop Robert Finn, the Catholic prelate in the U.S. heartland who became a symbol internationally of the church’s failures in addressing the sexual abuse crisis, has resigned. He was the first bishop criminally convicted of mishandling an abusive priest, yet remained in office for another three years.
The Vatican announced Finn’s resignation as head of the diocese of St. Joseph-Kansas City, Mo. in a terse note in its daily news bulletin Tuesday.
While the note did not provide any reason for the move, it is extraordinarily rare for bishops in the Catholic church to resign without cause before they reach the traditional retirement age of 75.
Finn, who is 62 and had led the diocese since 2005, was also neither assigned a new diocese or as yet given a new leadership role in the church.
Other than for reasons of health, only one other bishop among the some 200 U.S. Catholic dioceses and eparchies has resigned his role in such a manner in at least the past decade.
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