Amid all of the coverage of Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation on Tuesday was a very telling quote from the former chancellor of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Jude Huntz, who was chancellor under Finn from 2011 until August 2014, when he left to become the Director of the Office for Peace and Justice in the Archdiocese of Chicago, told the dissident National Catholic Reporter:
“Everybody has got to kind of come together in some sort of a liturgical and communal way just to bring healing,” he said. “This isn’t just about sex abuse. This is about a whole lot of other things that are ideological.“
Anyone familiar with Bishop Finn’s tenure in Kansas City knows of the challenges he faced. As a priest of Opus Dei, and someone who was also publicly supportive of the Traditional Latin Mass, Bishop Finn was not afraid to take on a diocesan culture that had existed for years. The late Bishop Raymond Boland, Finn’s immediate predecessor in Kansas City, was honored with an award for his pastoral “leadership” by the National Catholic Reporter at its 40th anniversary dinner in 2004. Within his first week in the diocese following his installation in May 2005, Bishop Finn made it abundantly clear that things were going to be different going forward. According to the Reporter, Finn:
Dismissed the chancellor, a layman with 21 years of experience in the diocese; the vice chancellor, a religious woman stationed in the diocese for nearly 40 years; and the chief of pastoral planning for the diocese since 1990. He replaced them with a priest chancellor.
Canceled the diocese’s nationally renowned lay formation programs and a master’s degree program in pastoral ministry.
Halved the budget of the Center for Pastoral Life and Ministry, effectively forcing the almost immediate resignation of half the seven-member team. Within 10 months, all seven would be gone and the center shuttered.
For those who have worked for decades to clericalize the laity, it is anathema for any priest or bishop to diminish lay ministries and to restore a proper balance between the universal priesthood and the sacramental priesthood. The Reporter further notes that Bishop Finn:
Ordered the editor of the diocesan newspaper to immediately cease publishing columns by Notre Dame theologian Fr. Richard McBrien and announced he would review all front-page stories, opinion pieces, columns and editorials before publication.
In other words Bishop Finn simply required his diocesan paper to present Catholicism authentically. No doubt these moves did little to endear Bishop Finn to the entrenched and self-important Catholics who often make up the diocesan establishment.
Let me pause for a moment for a disclaimer: In no way am I dismissing the seriousness of what transpired under Bishop Finn’s watch. The discovery and eventual arrest of a diocesan priest for possession of child pornography is both sickening and scandalous. An investigation that culminates with a guilty plea by the current bishop to a misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse is equally shocking. In this instance, Bishop Finn demonstrated both poor judgment and criminal behavior.
Having said that, I also understand that those who most stridently oppose the return of orthodoxy and authentic Catholicism do not hesitate to destroy their perceived enemies. This is what we are currently seeing play out in San Francisco as self described “prominent Catholics” seek to oust Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for simply promoting the true faith with clarity and conviction. Those who have tried to “sing a new Church into being” for fifty years are still fighting. Both Kansas City and San Francisco remind us that the “Spirit of Vatican II” is harder to kill than Michael Myers in “Halloween”.
There is one facet to the Bishop Finn story, however, that quantitatively illustrates the impact he had during his ten years in the diocese. I would argue that it ties in with a clearer understanding of the proper roles of both the clergy and the laity, and a greater appreciation for the priesthood, both pastorally and liturgically.
Currently the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has 32 young men in seminary for a population of only 133,000 Catholics; impressive numbers by any standards. In 2015 alone the diocese will ordain 9 men to the priesthood. Compare this to the Archdiocese of New York with its Catholic population of over 2.8 Million. For both 2012 and 2013 combined only 7 diocesan priests were ordained.
It is also important to note that the ordination of these 9 young men is not an anomaly for Kansas City. For the years 2010-2012 the diocese ordained a total of 14 men to the priesthood, placing them in the top 15 out of nearly 200 dioceses in the United States for ordinand to Catholic ratio. According to Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which has been documenting these surveys for over twenty years, the diocese never appeared in the top 20 until Bishop Finn arrived. As I have written about before, authenticity, orthodoxy and tradition friendly bishops attract men to the priesthood. This is a major part of Bishop Finn’s legacy, and it needs to be told.
As this story continues to unfold in the coming days and weeks, it is important to recall these success stories from Bishop Finn’s time in Kansas City. Additionally, we must appreciate the difficulty that priests and bishops encounter as they address the dissent and heterodoxy long festering in many parishes and chanceries. One final excerpt from the National Catholic Reporter regarding the arrival of Bishop Finn ten years ago:
The new bishop “came with an agenda,” Fr. Richard Carney told NCR in 2006. Carney was then a priest of more than 50 years and a respected leader in the diocese…
“[Finn] didn’t ask us who we are and what we are about…”
Fr. Carney, might it be that the good bishop simply assumed you were all Catholic and that you were all about the salvation of souls?
“Fr. Carney, might it be that the good bishop simply assumed you were all Catholic and that you were all about the salvation of souls?”
BINGO!!!!
Great article, you gave us “the rest of the story” but that graphic surprised me. Springfield, MA is second behind Lincoln, NE in ordaining priests?! I don’t think that diocese is a hotbed of orthodoxy…
Finn’s sin obviously was not that he failed to report suspected child abuse but he sinned against collegiality and the audacity of trying to silence a known heretic while
Steve, that obnoxious sidebar sharing-thing is back on the left side of hte page blocking the text. Can we get rid of that thing? Or move it, maybe? Put it somewhere that it doesn’t cover up the left edge of the text?
This is the first I have read of this scandal and after being on the internet for the past few years I have acquired a suspicious bent of mind.
It really rings very inconsistent of the good Bishop’s character, particularly in light of his Eminence’s orthodoxy and past scandals of the same kind.
I know this sounds like a very long shot but given the nature of our opponents/enemies could he have been set up somehow? Just wondering.
I personally find this argument compelling. It should be taken into consideration:
http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/US.php?id=4332
Interesting perspective. One that I had not previously thought of. Food for thought.
His staff made several missteps and the good Bishop fell on his sword for them, he took responsibility for their faults.
For those not aware: There are 194 dioceses in the United States. Top 20 is nothing to sneeze at.
This article is ridiculous. I highly recommend you actually read the Graves Report and find out what the facts are before you post things like this. All of the good things Bishop Finn did (and they *are* good, no question) do not and cannot excuse the fact that he failed completely and utterly to exercise the most basic level of care for the people entrusted to him in that diocese. It doesn’t matter how many other good things he did, they do not excuse the evil he actually did.
Being an Orthodox bishop is a good and rare thing, but it doesn’t give you a free pass. And those of you who think he’s being railroaded by his ideological enemies are either ignorant of the facts or deluded. While undoubtedly his ideological enemies are making hay out of his sins, they remain his sins, they’re not fabrications cooked up to “bring a good man down”.
Read the Graves Report (http://www.diocese-kcsj.org/_docs/8-31-11_Report_of_Independent_Investigation.pdf).
Major FAIL.
You clearly are ignorant of the facts of the case. Check out the EWTN link provided by Steve above, and the summary of the pseudo-trial attended by Bill (a Kansas attorney) which he posts below.
Your indictment of Steve’s article looks like an ideologically driven rant, and no more.
Weak. Very weak.
This is pretty much exactly what I knew this article was going to produce. The EWTN article and Bill from KS post are both about a legal issue which doesn’t particularly interest me. It shouldn’t interest any of us – all of us, and Bishops in particular, are called to meet a higher standard than whether or not they technically can be charged with a crime.
This is really very, very simple: if this were a liberal bishop, you would be (quite rightly) howling for his blood. Because he is not a liberal, you are determined to find a way to excuse him and chalk it all up to some sort of liberal conspiracy.
Defending Bishop Finn is a tremendous disservice to the Church – I’m sorry that offends you, but that’s just the way it is. Look at the actual facts (not some media story, no matter whether EWTN or CNN) and ask yourself if you might think about this differently if your daughter was involved.
I am not going to reply to this again. I’m not interested in debating random people on the internet – there is no debate. The facts speak for themselves. You can read them here if you’re interested: http://www.diocese-kcsj.org/_docs/8-31-11_Report_of_Independent_Investigation.pdf
This is about justice, Thomas. And this appears to be an injustice.
I don’t believe the article I linked because it’s from EWTN, I believe it because it is written by a practicing attorney in that part of the country who made a persuasive argument that the legal case was defective.
Bill’s recounting of the events makes a similar case.
Everything I’ve read leads me to believe that the bishop took reasonable action based on the evidence available to him at the time. Frankly, if Fr. Ratigan’s suicide attempt had succeeded, we would never have heard any more about this, because what was on his computer at that time was *not* criminal. The criminal activity came later.
And as soon as the bishop was aware that Fr. Ratigan had violated his orders and that his behavior had become actually criminal, he was turned over to authorities.
In the mean time, Bishop Finn’s good works have been cast aside. He turned around an ailing diocese, increased vocations, welcomed the Latin Mass (and priests and seminarians who wanted to say it), was actively pro-life, etc.
That’s important for a number of reasons, one of them directly related to the case: bishops who create strong, prayerful, orthodox dioceses draw good candidates for ordination while making things uncomfortable for perverts who want to hide behind the Roman collar. He was creating an environment where Catholic life could flourish and quality vocations were resulting from it.
Now, that’s gone.
Meanwhile, prelates like Daneels, Mahoney, Barros, et. al. remain untouched for real, heinous crimes and heterodoxy.
The most anyone could accuse Finn of here is moving too cautiously and not throwing a priest to the wolves until he had evidence. Even the psych evaluation gave Ratigan a clean bill of health. Why isn’t that psychologist on trial for not preventing this if we’re going to hold those in positions of responsibility accountable for not accurately discerning future criminal behavior?
The whole thing stinks.
Steve,
I concur with Thomas that bishops need to be held to a higher standard, even ones that have otherwise excellent track records on orthodoxy or Latin Mass friendliness. This principle was established even in the Middle Ages, where the penitentials laid out that bishops guilty of grievous crimes were to be held to a greater punishment than the ones given to laymen; they were to be judged by the king.
Let me address one assumption that has hitherto gone unquestioned in this comment thread. Steve, you wrote:
“And as soon as the bishop was aware that Fr. Ratigan had violated his
orders and that his behavior had become actually criminal, he was turned
over to authorities.”
Unfortunately, no. Bishop Finn never had any intention of turning Ratigan over to police, even after he found out that Ratigan was violating his entirely-unenforced prohibition of interacting with children. We can read this in the Stipulation of Testimony given by the Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/legal/State_of_Missouri_v_Bishop_Finn/2012_09_06_Finn_Stipulation_of_Testimony_R.pdf
As outlined there and in the Graves Report, it was the vicar general, Mgsr. Murphy, who finally made the call to police… while Finn was out of town, and without Finn’s knowledge. See paragraphs 63 and 64:
“62. Murphy stated that Finn was out of town when he reported to the police and was “upset” upon learning of his actions. “It seemed he was angry.” When asked if he was concerned that he might be angering his boss Murphy stated, “Yes. I told my sister, I think I made a decision that will not make the Bishop happy.” Murphy further testified that defendant Finn told him he should have followed their attorney’s advice.
“63. Finn said he may have talked loudly because he had a loud voice. But he remembered Murphy looking crushed and did not think it was heated. Finn said he understood Murphy had shown the images to Smith in December 2010.”
Also, a little further down:
“65. Creech contacted Finn after Ratigan’s arrest to find out what had happened to cause Murphy to contact the police. Creech testified that Finn “was a little frustrated that he had called at this point. And I [Creech] asked why, and he [Finn] said because the priest wouldn’t get the help he needs if he were in prison. And he [Finn] did explain that they had provided psychiatric help for this priest and sent him somewhere for some help.”
“66. Finn testified during the Grand Jury investigation that the issue of a mandated report to Children’s Division never came up in any conversation.
“67. Following the arrest of Ratigan, Finn met with priests of the Diocese. When asked why Ratigan was not removed earlier, Finn replied that he “wanted to save Fr. Ratigan’s priesthood” and was told that Ratigan’s problem was only pornography.”
In other words, Bishop Finn himself admitted that he kept Ratigan away from police because he believed that Ratigan could be cured and put back in regular ministry. That was the party line for all such bishops faced with pedophile priests in the 20th century, but for some reason, Finn was repeating this in 2011, a full decade after the sex abuse crisis blew up in the hierarchy’s face…. and after Finn himself, in settling abuse cases from his predecessors’ days, agreed to report the first signs of sexual abuse to authorities.
You’re right to be outraged that Bishop Barros, etc. are free to roam, and that (as far as I know) the psychologist in this case hasn’t suffered any punitive action.
Nonetheless, we have the very unsettling facts that:
a.) Bishop Finn had a report from a Catholic school principal charging Ratigan with disturbing behavior around children. (That Finn chose not to read it is his problem.)
b.) Following that report, Finn knew that Ratigan had disturbing photos of children on his laptop. (Whether or not he knew them to be “pornographic” is an academic distinction when it comes to cases like this.)
c.) During Ratigan’s “recuperation” at the Vincentian house, he had unfettered access to both the Internet and children and freely traveled away from the premises. Finn had no plan on how to enforce the restrictions against either, and never asked the two priests at the Vincentian house to police Ratigan.
d.) At no point did Finn ever make the call to police authorities.
Any principal or other school official who sat on that kind of knowledge for five months without reporting it to the police would never be able to get a job in education ever again. A bishop who isn’t willing to take all measures necessary to protect the children of his diocese from predators like Ratigan isn’t worthy of holding the office, no matter how many pontifical high Masses he’s celebrated.
Graves report, not Groves report
He was not really “manifestly guilty” since he had sought the advice of police experts on whether a reportable event had occurred – he asked a Police Captain and that captain consulted another police officer before answering. However, the process was a failed process, and it led to bad advice being given to the diocese, and that is where the failure came.
Ultimately, Finn is responsible for their being a process failure. But it was an inadvertent thing that really did not endanger any children, because as soon as the pictures were found on Ratigans computer, he tried to commit suicide, and was probably being watched extremely carefully after that, regardless of whether the whole thing was reported to the police. He was immediately removed from all contact with children, that is for sure.
Fred, you wrote:
“But it was an inadvertent thing that really did not endanger any
children, because as soon as the pictures were found on Ratigans
computer, he tried to commit suicide, and was probably being watched
extremely carefully after that, regardless of whether the whole thing
was reported to the police. He was immediately removed from all contact
with children, that is for sure.”
Alas, we are sure that was NOT what happened.
Shawn Ratigan was assigned to recuperate from his suicide attempt at the Vincentian Mission House in Independence, Missouri, in January 2011. He lived in residence with two Vincentian priests. Neither of those priests were told that Ratigan was a suspected pedophile; they were merely told that he attempted suicide. The Graves Report states, “Bishop Finn believed this would be an appropriate setting because its isolation meant that Fr. Ratigan would have limited contact with children.”
Note that it does not say NO contact. The Retreat House was adjacent to a Franciscan Retreat Center where children frequented for retreats, sometimes overnight. On February 10, Finn told Ratigan not to use the Internet or have contact with children, but this was expressly mitigated to allow him to celebrate Mass for them. In any case, Finn told no one else about Ratigan’s restrictions, so there was no way to enforce them other than “scout’s honor”. Ratigan was violating both restrictions within the first month, contacting children on Facebook using the guest computer at the house he was staying at (with no measures to govern his usage).
The Graves Report states:
“On March 12, 2011, Fr. Ratigan attended the Snake Saturday parade in North Kansas City. St. Patrick’s Parish had a float in the parade, a magnet for families and children. Fr. Ratigan interacted with many parishioners and children, at the parade. He also attended a child’s birthday party in March 2011.”
Just three days after being admonished by Finn (with no real repercussions), Ratigan violated the rules again:
“On April 11, 2011, just three days after Bishop Finn admonished him again to have no contact with children, Fr. Ratigan heard individual confessions of minors at the Franciscan Prayer Center on retreat. Additionally, while living at the Vincentian House, Fr. Ratigan hosted an Easter party/family reunion on the property. Several young children were present. Fr. Ratigan is charged in the federal indictment with attempting to produce pornography by taking additional pictures of a young girl aimed up her shorts on Easter Sunday. ”
And again:
“Fr. Ratigan grew bolder. He attended a track meet for Bishop LeBlond High School on May 7, 2011, and around the same time, Fr. Ratigan had contact with at least one family from St. Joseph’s Parish in Easton, Missouri.”
Finally, if there was any doubt about the potential for harm that Finn allowed to take place, the Report gives these two anonymous notes given from parents who attended one of the bishop’s listening sessions shortly after the arrest of Ratigan:
“The images of my daughter’s private areas that the FBI showed me, they are forever burned into my brain. … Shawn Ratigan was in my house, around my children in February, and I thought my children were completely SAFE!!”
And:
“You let one of your priests hurt my children and you saw the pictures and decided to cover it up. That monster was in my house in February 11’ to prey on my children and I let him in, since you felt you were above the law and made that decision not to turn in photos of my kids.”
This is a grave misrepresentation of the facts of the case.
I’m wondering if someone planted those pictures on that priest’s computer. No. 1–police who were consulted said they weren’t pornographic. No. 2–the priest attempted suicide. No. 3–Yes, Bishop Finn pled guilty to non-reporting; however, NEVER had an accusation of any kind of sexual abuse entered the picture. No. 3–the homosexuals & liberals wanted to destroy Finn. They’ve succeeded. But, God will have the last laugh!
See the Graves report. The priest had been acting strange, and people had pointed this out. His home was filled with stuffed animals, and he had done some weird things. But nothing overt was discovered until the pictures were found on his computer.
The bishop was charged with two misdemeanors, after he consulted a lawyer and police officer for advice after images were found on Ratigan’s computer. They told the Bishop the images were not pornographic. Read the Bishop’s own account of what happened:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2011/05_06/2011_05_20_TheNewsPress_StatementBy.htm
I attended his “trial.” It started at 1:00 p.m. on a Thursday, and lasted one hour. 15 minutes of opening arguments by the prosecutor and the Bishop’s lawyer, then the judge went back to his chambers to review the “stipulations” of the parties. He came back about 15 minutes later and said he had reviewed the evidence and was ready to make his ruling. This was about 1:30 p.m. He found Finn not guilty on Count 1 (time period A), but guilty on Count 2 (a later time period). The prosecutor then stood up and said that in light of this finding, she was dismissing the Diocese. She was reading from a prepared statement. The judge then said he was ready to enter sentencing and asked if the Bishop had anything to say. Bishop Finn read a short prepared statement apologizing for the hurt this matter had caused. Then the judge gave the bishop 2 years of probation, but waived a probation officer. It was over in an hour. I’ve been a trial lawyer for over 20 years. Trials start on Monday mornings and run until finished. This was no trial. It appears to have been a pre-arranged agreement, but the prosecutor must have wanted a guilty verdict rather than a plea agreement. The newspaper headline was “Finn Guilty” and recent reports claim that Finn was found guilty by a judge. It is obvious that the Bishop accepted blame to avoid the Diocese going through a trial, and being found guilty (since the principals, diocese staff, others had read a report on Ratigan’s behavior and knew of his conduct but failed to report it). He is the head of the Diocese and took the blame. He is a decent and holy man, and this is such an unfortunate outcome, totally misreported by the media. I hope Jean Peters-Baker (Jackson County Prosecutor) is happy she ruined this man’s career.
I really appreciate your comment, Bill. Thank you for shedding light on the situation.
It appears that underlings 1) Took the word of the police officers they called that the pictures found on Ratigans computer did not rise to a “reportable event” under the applicable laws.
2) It appears that Finn took the rap so that others in the diocese did not have to. He seems to have accepted full responsibility.
As soon as the pictures were found, Ratigan was removed from all contact with children. As soon as this happened, he tried to commit suicide, so he was probably in some sort of very closely followed mental health care after that. So no one tried to “protect Ratigan”
However, there was bad judgment evidenced by Finn, in that what should have happened is that the entire matter should have been turned over to the authorities as soon as anything suspicious was discovered. This was not the procedure in the diocese, instead they called their experts to see if a reportable event had happened, and they got bad advice. So Finn is responsible for that process failure.
If people had been given the correct information, we could have had more robust, accurate child protection processes in place all over the country. But because they were blinded by their ideological hatred for Finn, instead all they and their media buddies kept yelling was that Finn had purposely tried to protect a child abuser. That is not what happened. As a result, the shriekers have actually endangered children rather than acted to save them, because they obscured the process failure that led to the breakdown here.
They do not really care about the children, they care about taking down conservative bishops. That is the only reason they raise this issue. When liberal bishops are found to do the same thing, they tend not to care at all.
Jean Peters Baker is a NARAL backed prosecutor who was trying to make a name for herself. She had just become prosecutor. She no doubt led an effort of many dissidents in KC area. They have been after Bishop Finn since he came to Kansas City. The Ratigan episode was a convenient tool for them. Peters-Baker had no case against Bishop Finn.(See Michael Quinlan explanation at Justice for Bishop Finn site)
As a 55 year member of the diocese of KC-St. Joseph, I am sickened. A good and holy man was persecuted with the great aid of the dissident National “Catholic” Reporter, and the virulently anti-Catholic Kansas City Star.( See what Bill Donahue says about the Star at Catholic League Site)
Don’t worry she will pay for this injustice dearly.
There was much injustice done in this accusation about the Bishop. Bishop Finn did not even know about the pictures that the priest took of the children in the playground. How come these pictures were not presented to the public? They show a couple girls on the play ground showing their legs. They had their school uniforms on. . Why did the staff member of that office not report that these pictures were being taken? This whole accusation was no doubt a bunch of lies. A bishop cannot be in an area for (10) ten years and have that many seminarians in his diocese unless he is holy. Ten years with (1) complaint about some pictures on a priests computer that he took of the play ground with children playing?? Something is very strange because this does not add-up.
Excellent article, Brian. Sadly, with the Pope on the side of the National Catholic Reporter crowd, the tenure of Bishop Finn is cut short and his accomplishments will be immediately dismantled. After 40 years of tiny, incremental progress until two Popes, who were fine men but of inconstant leadership, Catholicism is in full retreat across the world.
Don’t think Bishop Finn is really a priest of Opus Dei, per se, but instead a diocesan priest who later chose to become a member of the priestly society of the Holy Cross.