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October 19, 2011 at 11:28 am 
Ed Brayton For the first time ever in the U.S., a Catholic church official has been criminally charged for failing to report suspected child molestation by a priest in his charge to the police. The New York Times reports:
A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church’s sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised.
The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty.
The case caused an uproar among Catholics in Kansas City this year when Bishop Finn acknowledged that he knew of the photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. During that time, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, is said to have continued to attend church events with children, and took lewd photographs of another young girl.
A decade ago the American bishops pledged to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities — a policy also recommended last year by the Vatican. Bishop Finn himself had made such a promise three years ago as part of a $10 million legal settlement with abuse victims in Kansas City.
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Why o why are religious leaders not Mandated reporters??
Ongoing crimes are even exempt from privilege with legal council.
I do hope this bishop fights the charges all the way to the bitter end–and that the end is truly bitter. I want this scum not merely punished, but exposed. Maybe then the rest of the Pedophile Protectorate will get the freakin’ message.
I hope this starts a precedent of enforcing the law even when broken by priests and bishops. That would be a nice change.
Seriously, QFT.
I like that the New York Times acknowledges that we have known about the child abuse scandal(s) for the past 25 years – too often I see media reports that claim the scandal only began in the late 90s/early 00s – but the truth is the history of the sex abuse itself is at least several decades older. I understand that individual acts – both the abuse itself and the aiding and abetting of that abuse by church leadership – from most of those years are likely beyond the statute of limitations and can’t be prosecuted. However, my understanding of the law – admittedly based on watching a LOT of Law and Order episodes – is that if a conspiracy is ongoing, the statute of limitations is moot. This is just the latest example that the over-arching conspiracy to cover up these crimes continues – can’t we prosecute that, and wouldn’t it involve some kind of RICO violation?
Would there also be a strong case for a civil suit? After all, they settled a prior suit by promising to report such crimes in the future. They didn’t. IANAL but I would think the earlier plaintiff would now have a case to get the full amount of what they asked for, instead of the $10M settlement they got.
The archbishop faces a misdemeanor charge, not a felony charge.
I think the RCC will insist that adequate punishment for the misdemeanor of failing to report child abuse should be 3 Our Fathers, 3 Hail Mary’s and 3 Glory Be’s.
People, people, calm down.
Bishop Finn, as a moral and ethical leader in the Roman Catholic Church, was more than likely just holding on to the pictures to protect the innocence of the little girl in question.
There is just no reason to jump to wild conclusions like B.Finn was attempting to protect a struggling artist/priest from a world that would never understand the artistic vision of naked kids representing the Innocence of the Virgin Mary. There is no evidence that Bishop Finn was masturbating wildly to the photos while in his office or the confessional, or that he paid the priest in question with envelopes filled to bursting with money from the Offering to produce the artistic visions.
Only in a culture as Evil as ours would someone point the finger of blame at the Roman Catholic Church and its leaders, when the true danger to our children is obviously from the Gay Agenda. The Catholic faith, and its leaders are servants of God. Whatever a priest or Bishop deems fitting to do to a younger member of the flock, whether it includes nudity, fellatio, buggery, whips, ball gags, video/photographic equipment, and/or large amounts of drugged communion wine, we can be sure that it is for God and God alone, and not due to any base desire of the priest.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
….
There, I already wrote Bill Donohue’s response for him. The bigot better give me credit if I see any of this in a press release from the Catholic League.
Great. One down, how many hundreds, thousands, to go? At least it’s (hopefully) a start.
I really hope this builds momentum. Religion has been an easy shield from justice for far too long.
“Innocent until proven guilty”, but the clock keeps going tick, tick, tick….
It’s a start, at least.
I hope there’ll be more of these cases, enough so that all the other scumbags and cowards covering shit up start spilling the beans in the hope of saving their own sorry hides.
Foster Disbelief:
“Whatever a priest or Bishop deems fitting to do to a younger member of the flock, whether it includes nudity, fellatio, buggery, whips, ball gags, video/photographic equipment, and/or large amounts of drugged communion wine, we can be sure that it is for God and God alone, and not due to any base desire of the priest.”
You’re a dirty LIEAR! We didn’t never get any communion wine, drugged or otherwise. If we had, I might still be Cath-O-Lick.