When will these crimes boil over into some real change? Until then, Rome just pays off victims and stonewalls Grand Juries.
And somehow Rome gets away with it.
"Oh, for Christ's sake! Isn't anybody in charge around here?" -- Goldie Hawn in "Deceived."
For Christ's sake, indeed.
It is a strange priority, there seems to be a desire to protect “the church,” which is a good instinct -
and yet these children are “the church,” and that seems to be lost on some.
Furthermore, protecting “the church” as an institution should involve purging it of this evil.
It is like an idolatry of the heirarchy or something.
I can only give supposition.
This mes didn’t occur in the Church overnight.
It has been going on for years.
The Bishops and cardinals who are the Prince’s of the Church were picked from the ranks of the Priests.
How do we know that they themselves are as clean as the driven snow. Why else would they hide these people?
Certainly not to protect the Parisioners as they turned the ones they hid right back on the parisioners.
Now they cry when they cannot reach their goal in the Archbishop’s appeal. How much of that money went to pay off the victims. The victims of course deserve to be compensated,but not with money that I am told is going to provide charitable money for the Church’s works. I also do not want my money going to help bring illegals into this country to fill the pews or to provide Acorn with funds.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29441
Here is an interesting article about the case.
http://www.patheos.com/community/theanchoress/2011/06/07/bishop-finn-epic-fail-and-fallout/
Please note:
“”[Finn] sat on a summary given him by Msgr. Robert Murphy, his Vicar General, until several months later, when he learned that Ratigan possessed pornographic images of children. Even then, he declined to inform police for several more months until Ratigan violated his orders by consorting with minors.”
‘Diocesan Vicar General Monsignor Robert Murphy then called a ranking Kansas City police officer and described this photo.* In addition, the photos were provided to diocesan legal counsel. Both the police officer and legal counsel opined that the photos did not constitute child pornography as they did not contain sexual conduct or contact as defined by Missouri law. . .On the same day, Fr. Ratigan was called [by the Bishop’s office and] told to appear the next day at the chancery. Fr. Ratigan did not arrive at the chancery. Instead, the next morning he was found unconscious in his garage with his motorcycle running.
When Fr. Ratigan regained consciousness several days after this suicide attempt, he was placed in a psychiatric unit to minimize the chances of a further suicide attempt. According to a May 20 statement by Bishop Finn, Ratigan was then sent for further psychiatric evaluation out of state.
Although physically recovered, Fr. Ratigan was not allowed to return to St. Patrick and he was removed from pastoral duties there. After various evaluations and a stay at his mother’s house, in mid-February Fr. Ratigan was allowed live and pay rent at a Vincentian priest residence. According to Bishop Finn, Fr. Ratigan was allowed to say Mass at the adjacent Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Eucharist community, but was otherwise restricted in his activities. He was not allowed a camera or computer and he was not allowed to attend events where children were present.
On May 12, after repeated reports that Fr. Ratigan had violated these restrictions, Msgr. Murphy again contacted the police officer he had originally contacted in December. When Msgr. Murphy relayed ongoing concerns about Fr. Ratigan’s violation of the restrictions placed upon him, the officer facilitated a report to the Cyber Crimes Against Children Unit.
According to a “Probable Cause Statement” prepared by Detective Maggie McGuire of the Cyber Crimes unit, Fr. Ratigan was taken into custody on May 18 and kept on an investigative hold.
The next day, detectives obtained a search warrant for items belonging to Fr. Ratigan which had been held at his family’s home following Ratigan’s suicide attempt. In those items, detectives found an optical disk with 14 different images of child pornography and a Rocketfish hard drive with four images of child pornography. That same day, Ratigan was charged with three counts of possession of child pornography in Clay County.
On May 20, at a forum with St. Patrick parishioners and in a public statement, Bishop Finn said, “I deeply regret that we didn’t ask the police earlier to conduct a full investigation.’
I agree with the Anchoress that:
“Bishop Finn certainly has his defenders; he may indeed be a very good man, but any bishop who is not exquisitely sensitive to this issue, at this point, is betraying an astounding lack of understanding. If he doesn’t get it by now, when will he?
The church needs to do a great deal of penance for its sins, but all of it will prove meaningless if our bishops can’t pull themselves together. No one wants to see an innocent priest falsely accused, but if there is a whiff — and in Ratigan’s case there was more than a whiff — of suspicion, you don’t rely on summaries; you say, ‘show me the whole report.’”
I don’t see any basis to claim a coverup. Misjudgment yes, appalling lack of understanding yes. Did Finn honestly not question if Ratigan might not have more graphic images in his possesion? After all child porn is addictive to pedophiles. They are not gonna stop with just one.
This is the report that the principal of St. Patrick’s sent to the Dioceses last may.
http://ncrnews.org/documents/ratigan_letter.pdf
* if you go to page 3 of 5 you can read a description of the photo. I can not get it to copy over here.
Now taken by themselves and if they were each just one time incidents Father’s behavior might be regarded as benign. But taken all together alarm bells should be ringing off the wall to anyone who has any idea of how Pedophiles behave. With the attention Bishops are suppose to be paying to these warning signs Bp Flinn’s response or I would say non response is inexcusable. But that does not mean it rises to the level of cover up. The police too had the opportunity to request a more detailed investigation. They certainly can not be accused of coverup.