Posted on 05/08/2015 2:05:28 PM PDT by ebb tide
The Vatican investigation of Finn was about his ability to lead a diocese. It was not about any cover up or accusations of a cover up.
How do you explain Mahoney, Cupich, Gomez, Dolan, Wuerl, O’Malley, Lynch, Marx, Maradiaga, etc and their abilities to lead a diocese? Bishop Finn stands head and shoulders over all the above.
I have been wondering when someone was going to mention the Vicar General’s less than stellar performance.
Finn made outdoor parades of the crucifix through the latino quadrant along Southwest Boulevard a reality. Passersby stopped, kneeled, crossed themselves as the parade of the crucifix went by. Finn paraded down Broadway one year as well. He kept Christ out in front and Mohammed tucked away somewhere else. Kansas City is ripe for Sharia law and Finn fought it better than any other bishop in the USA. That is the reason her is gone.
All homo or homo-friendly, and thus immune from the depredations of the lavender mafia.
“How do you explain Mahoney,”
He’s no longer leading a diocese and never led one under this pope.
“Cupich, Gomez, Dolan, Wuerl, O’Malley, Lynch, Marx, Maradiaga, etc and their abilities to lead a diocese?”
I don’t explain it. I don’t have to.
“Bishop Finn stands head and shoulders over all the above.”
And yet he is the one who was charged with a crime - and his actions in that case have everything to do with how poorly he administered his diocese. He’s a basically good man, an orthodox bishop, but not a good leader, not a good administrator, and he completely ignored the advice of his own hand picked officials. That’s why his own hand picked - and in-house trained - chancellor threw Finn under the bus. Did you know that happened?
Why did Finn ignore the advice given to him by the fund raisers HE HIRED about delaying the start of a capital campaign? Do you know what happens if they end up 10, 15 or close to 20 million short of their goal? I do. Disaster!
Finn’s diocese lost 20,000 Catholics during his tenure. They didn’t die. They didn’t move to another diocese. They just disappeared. They essentially ceased being practicing Catholics.
It’s not that he was a bad man. It’s not that he was an unorthodox bishop. It’s that he simply had no idea of what to do. He hired some people who were incompetent (orthodox perhaps, but incompetent). He retained others who should have been fired and they were retained merely because they were his friends. If someone gets a lawsuit or two filed against you, he should be fired. Finn retained him. If he essentially steals from you (meaning stealing from the diocese), or uses the diocese for his own financial gain, he should be fired. Finn retained him. Finn did exactly the wrong thing in personnel matters repeatedly.
I had a discussion with one of his highest ranking officials four years ago, and I told him that a) the capital campaign was going to be in serious trouble, b) the diocese still had no plan for its parishioners after 5 years of Finn being in charge, and c) Finn might be a great liability down the road (this was in 2011 just after the Ratigan case broke; I didn’t live in the diocese and had nothing to lose). That official completely denied there were any problems. He was downright pollyannish about it. It was as if he was out of touch with reality. I guarantee you that official will be out of a job by the end of 2015 or whenever a new bishop is appointed.
Several people in that chancery are most likely now worried they will lose their jobs because their incompetence will be obvious to the next bishop. Archbishop Naumann, the apostolic administrator, has to know what’s what in the diocese because he has employees and associates who have “fled” the chancery of Kansas City, Missouri because of the chaos there under Finn. Have you kept up with the tumultuous changes in that diocese lately? Have you read about them online? Just since the Ratigan case broke, that diocese has lost two chancellors, two schools office administrators, two vicar generals, two directors from the catechetical institute, two directors of young adult ministry, the director of youth ministry, the director of marriage and family, the HR director, the head and associate head of stewardship, and a number of other people. Some of these people needed to go I am sure, but others were undoubtedly competent and left in disgust over Finn’s handling of things.
As soon as I heard about the Vatican investigation, I knew Finn was through. I remember reading in The Wanderer about Finn in 2006. I assumed - just as the author of the article suggested - that the attacks on Finn’s intelligence (his savvy, perhaps?) by liberals was just the standard sort of attack from liberals. After all don’t liberals attack the intelligence of conservatives all the time? But over the years I came to realize the liberals were right about Finn in at least one way: he just wasn’t that swift. I’m not saying he isn’t intelligent in an academic sense. I can’t even really say he has no street smarts at all. He just seems to make EXACTLY THE WRONG decision over and over again.
The one thing no one can take away from Bishop Robert Finn is that he dramatically increased the ranks of seminarians and new priests in his diocese. http://www.diocese-kcsj.org/_docs/2014_2015_Seminarian_Poster.pdf For that his parishioners should always be grateful.
“Finn paraded down Broadway one year as well.”
No, he PROCESSED down Broadway. I think he did it twice. Eucharistic Processions.
“Kansas City is ripe for Sharia law and Finn fought it better than any other bishop in the USA. That is the reason her is gone.”
No, it isn’t. Finn, like other bishops, led outdoor processions. He’s not the only one. He also did nothing to “fight” Sharia for it is not an issue in Kansas City. If he did fight it, then you would get this when you do a search for it on his own newspaper’s website: http://catholickey.org/?s=sharia&x=0&y=0 Missouri only has 195 Muslim adherents per 100,000 people. That Muslim population is small.
** would NOT **
Can you make your story more consistent?
First you deride Bishop Finn with the statement:
>>Finn’s diocese lost 20,000 Catholics during his tenure. They didn’t die. They didn’t move to another diocese. They just disappeared. They essentially ceased being practicing Catholics.<<
Yet later you state:
>> The one thing no one can take away from Bishop Robert Finn is that he dramatically increased the ranks of seminarians and new priests in his diocese.<<
I’d much rather have good, orthodox priests than weak “catholics” who “just disappear”. Once again, your “logic”, or lack thereof, eludes me.
“I have been wondering when someone was going to mention the Vicar General’s less than stellar performance.”
And he wasn’t the only one. What kind of bishop hears, “Hey, a school principal sent in this letter that says crazy things about Fr. Ratigan” and then DOES NOT ASK TO SEE THE LETTER??? Who does that? Seriously, if you’re a CEO of a corporation (let alone the bishop of a church), and one of your officials tells you he got a letter from a another official with accusations against yet another official wouldn’t you at least ask to see it? Think about it: there are only two possibilities in play there: 1) you have an official who is doing bizarre things and it requires your attention immediately, or 2) you have an official saying scandalously bizarre and untrue things about one of your officials and that warrants your immediate attention.
Finn said he never asked to see the letter. Who would do that? A very poor administrator of a diocese would.
And what kind of pathetic, homo-friendly pope would ignore the pleas of local clergy and laity to not force on them a pervert bishop in Orsorno, Chile?
I consider anybody you accuse of being wrong, as orthodox.
“Can you make your story more consistent?”
There are no inconsistencies. The problem is yours.
“First you deride Bishop Finn with the statement:”
Nope. I stated a fact. The diocese has lost 20,000 Catholics in just a decade. Where did they go? Who was bishop then? What plan did he come up with to stop this? Finn did nothing. He was advised to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING. He did nothing.
“Yet later you state:”
Yet I state? Are you honestly saying I made an inconsistent statement by pointing out that the number of Catholics dropped over his tenure while the number of seminarians increased? The two are in themselves UNRELATED.
“I’d much rather have good, orthodox priests than weak “catholics” who “just disappear”. Once again, your “logic”, or lack thereof, eludes me.”
You’re the one who is not being logical. 1) you’re accusing me of inconsistency when I said nothing that was inconsistent. 2) you’re assuming that all of the new priests are orthodox. Don’t. Look up what happened to Fr. Jorge Ramirez. People assumed Ratigan was orthodox. In what he taught, he might have been, but not in how he lived. I know one of the new priests ordained by Finn to be a relative liberal compared to others. I had discussions with him before and after he was ordained. He was smart enough to never cross a certain line, but he’s still more liberal than others. 3) you’re making the mistake of assuming that all those who left were “weak ‘catholics’” when I know that not all were by any means. Did you know, for instance, that some of those most upset at Finn were real orthodox, conservative Catholics who felt betrayed by Finn’s stupid handling of the Ratigan case? That by the way included priests. Some of the most outspoken priests against Finn were some of those who were thought to be very orthodox. People openly discussed the fact that it was a handful of liberals among his clergy who came to his defense against some of the more orthodox conservative priests. I know a family that wrote a letter to Bishop Finn over how they were being treated by their parish priest. They preferred the Latin Mass, but were forced by circumstances to move to a different town and attend the local parish. The pastor there refused to allow them to kneel to receive the Eucharist and mocked the girls for wearing veils at Mass. When the family appealed to Finn for support, he ripped them to shreds in his response letter. A family member in another state informed me about the contents of the letter after their relatives were able to pull up stakes and move to another state. I know all the family members involved. Another good Catholic family lost to that diocese.
“I consider anybody you accuse of being wrong, as orthodox.”
That’s not relevant. Someone can be wrong and orthodox. If you believe in the resurrection of Christ, you’re orthodox. If you ignore a principal’s letter about suspicious activity on the part of a priest you’re wrong.
I don’t consider you to be a an orthodox Catholic; so I pay no mind to your criticism of Bishop Finn.
“I don’t consider you to be a an orthodox Catholic; so I pay no mind to your criticism of Bishop Finn.”
You’re no judge of what is orthodox and you certainly have shown no knowledge about Bishop Finn. You can’t refute anything I said.
The stats are old, wrong and false.
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