UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
And, of course, the big news in the Catholic church in the U.S. today: the convicted felon who was bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Robert Finn, has just resigned. As Laurie Goodstein reports for New York Times,
Such a resignation is extremely rare when a bishop is not ill or close to the retirement age of 75. Bishop Finn is 62 and has served in his diocese just short of 10 years.
The Vatican announced the resignation in a brief note in its daily news bulletin Tuesday, and did not give a reason. But the Vatican cited a provision in church law under which a bishop is “earnestly requested” to resign because of ill health or “some other grave cause.”
As she notes, Pope Francis (who will be visiting the U.S. this year, and would certainly have had to field serious questions about the fact that Finn had remained in his episcopal seat after having been convicted of placing children at risk by shielding a priest he knew to be a pedophile) has been under mounting pressure to show that he’s serious about addressing the abuse crisis. Goodstein quotes Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, who notes that no pope has ever issued a statement indicating that the reason a bishop has been removed was his record in covering up child abuse.
Doyle states,
We urge Pope Francis to issue such a statement immediately. That would be unprecedented, and it would send a bracing message to bishops and religious superiors worldwide that a new era has begun.
David Clohessy of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) notes that, though Finn’s resignation is a step forward, it’s a small step, since the abuse crisis (and cover-up) in the Catholic church vastly transcends any single bishop. Clohessy writes,
After centuries of abuse and cover up done in secrecy, and decades of abuse and cover up done somewhat in public, one pope has finally seen fit to oust one bishop for complicity in clergy sex crimes. That’s encouraging. But it’s only a very tiny drop of reform in an enormous bucket of horror.
Finn’s departure will, in the short term, make some adults happier. By itself, it won’t, in the long term, make many kids safer.
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