KANSAS CITY (MO)
Religion Dispatches
Post by PATRICIA MILLER
Less than two weeks after the Vatican complained that it wasn’t its handling of child sex abuse cases that was problematic but a UN report that dared to dive into matters of Catholic doctrine, a group of Catholics from Kansas City, MO, has petitioned Pope Francis to remove a bishop found guilty of concealing pedophilia, the New York Times reports.
The request was made by 13 parishioners, a nun who coordinated victims’ assistance for the Kansas City diocese, and a priest, the Rev. James Connell. It was backed by an online petition signed by 113,000 Catholics. They asked Pope Francis to remove Bishop Robert Finn, who was convicted in 2012 of a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a priest who had pornographic images of children on his computer. The priest is currently serving 50 years for taking the pictures but Finn remains in place as the head of the diocese.
The UN report said that the Vatican’s failure to remove bishops who facilitated pedophilia by failing to report it or moving abusers from parish to parish was one of the major unresolved problems of the church’s handling of the child sex abuse scandal.
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