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William D. Lindsey
Updates on Two Catholic Abuse Stories: Cardinal O’Malley on Bishop Finn and Pope Francis; SNAP Holds Media Event to Press Arkansas Bishop for More Information about Abusive Priest
Two updates on previous stories I’ve told here about the clerical abuse situation in various parts of the Catholic world. The first has to do with Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, who was convicted in 2012 of criminal behavior in shielding Father Shawn Ratigan after Finn knew that Ratigan possessed child pornography (he had been taking pornographic photos of little girls) on his computer. If you want to follow what I’ve reported about that story in the past, please click on the label “Bishop Robert Finn” below this posting.
Today, CBS News has uploaded to its website a preview of an interview of Boston cardinal Seán O’Malley by journalist Norah O’Donnell. The full interview will air on CBS this coming Sunday (16 November) at 7 P.M. ET. As Joshua McElwee reports for National Catholic Reporter, Finn’s situation is “a question that the Holy See needs to address urgently.”
Stay tuned. This is a story that sounds to me as if it’s about to get interesting.
The second update is about a story I reported here in October: in late September, the Catholic bishop of Little Rock, Anthony Taylor, removed from ministry a priest named Father James Melnick. As my previous posting notes, when Taylor removed Melnick from ministry, he announced that there had been multiple accusations of sexual misconduct with adults made against Melnick.
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.