Bishop Finn did in fact report the abuse. That’s why the priest was arrested.
The report itself is not very big on facts, but this looks like another anti-Catholic smear job.
The bishop reported this guy.
Does anyone think that the authorities would arrest a public school teacher for this? Let alone the head of the teacher’s union who covered for him, or the head of the school board, or the principal who hired him? I think not.
It’s just anti-Catholicism, 24/7.
There was some negligence on the part of the bishops decades ago, mostly because they foolishly trusted the advice of psychiatric advisers. But very, very few guilty bishops. Rembert Weakland, for instance. I think that at this point, they’re all gone, or will shortly be going.
The story seems to be that a priest had gotten caught with scads of kiddie porn on his computer. Story is coherent so far. Where the story becomes vague is how it was inferred or deduced that this priest was also molesting children, and that the diocese and the priest’s bishop had reason to know about it.
So is the state fishing, or has someone made allegations of being abused (or having a child being abused) by that priest and of trying in vain to alert his superiors?
SNAP rides again. The object is to defame and impoverish the diocese.
Let me give some real number about the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priest.
The Washington Post (not a Catholic Church friendly publication) found that “Over the last four decades, less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 or more men who have served in the Catholic clergy have been accused of child sexual abuse.”
The New York Times found in its investigation “1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001.” were accused of abuse.
That mean less than 220 priest are involved.
If you want to find rampant sexual abuse by clergy look at the Protestants.
An investigation done by Associated Press found these startling numbers.
According to Church Mutual, which insures about 96,000 Protestant churches, it had an average of 100 claims of child sexual abuse per year.
Guide One, which insures 45,000 Protestant churches, reported it has an average of 160 claims per year.
Brotherhood Mutual, another insurer, averaged 75 claims per year.
And since most Protestant churches are not control by regional or national authorities, the vast majority of sexual abuse cases are never investigated.
So if you want to protect your children from clergy, don’t go to a Protestant denomination.
Now if you really want to protect your children, keep them out of school.
Schools have huge sexual abuse problems.
In a Hofstra University study by Charol Shakeshaft, it was found that nearly 10% of students (4.5 million) have experienced sexual assault, harassment or rape by teachers and coaches. This is over 100 times the abuse found in the Catholic Church.
Shakeshaft in a study of 225 abuse cases found that, “All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but none of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only 1 percent lost their license to teach. Only 35 percent suffered negative consequences of any kind, and 39 percent chose to leave their school district, most with positive recommendations. Some were even given an early retirement package.”
Heck, states like Maine have laws which keeps reports of teacher sexual abuse secret.
So why are Protestant leaders never charged with child endangerment?
Why are principals and school boards never charged with child endangerment?
We all know the answer, don’t we.
Bishop Finn is my Bishop. The Monsignor who was responsible for checking all this out I also know. This is what I know. What happened was they went to the local police contact and told what they knew at the time when they found out. He was Kansas City police. he advised them they didn’t have enough evidence at the time to do too much. Somewhere around five months later more solid evidence came to light and they turned it over to Independence Mo police who got a search warrant and shortly afterwards the police arrested the priest. Both the Bishop and the Monsignor are of the highest moral character but the fact remains that there were children left in danger the whole time. It is a bad situation all the way around but ultimately you do have a guilty priest and not enough was done soon enough. These people got bad advice early on and followed it. It is a shame for everybody and hopefully they can be an example to other Bishops and others in dioceses all across the states that the children must be protected at first notice.
Imagine a society where anyone can be jailed for failing to report a possible crime.