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BY HARUMENDHAH HELMY ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN
In a historic verdict, Bishop Robert Finn of the Kansas City-Saint Joseph diocese is
now the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official to be found guilty in a crime connected to
a child sex abuse scandal. Kansas City’s WDAF has more.
“Bishop Finn … was charged as a result of hundreds of lewd photos of children discovered
on Father Shawn Ratigan’s computer. Prosecutors argued that Bishop Finn knew about them and
failed to report it in a timely fashion.”
Finn reportedly first learned of child *** collection owned by this priest, Ratigan,
in 2010. Church officials didn’t report the priest to the police until 2011. According
to the New York Times, the officials did so without Finn’s approval.
Finn was found guilty on only one of his two misdemeanor charges of failing to report possible
child abuse. In a surprise move, the judge convicted Finn on a trial without a jury.
The Kansas City Star says it allowed for more privacy for the victims.
“The change in the trial procedure avoided what was expected to be a two-week jury trial,
allowed prosecutors to shield vulnerable witnesses and their families from public scrutiny and
eliminated the need for finding an unbiased jury in a case with two high-profile defendants.”
Meanwhile, cases against the actual Kansas City diocese itself were dismissed. Jackson
County Prosecutor Jean Baker explains why to KMBC.
“In this kind of negotiations, there’s give and take … Although it was an organizational
failure, he was the leader of that organization.”
The National Catholic Reporter says the series of *** abuse cases against the Kansas City
diocese has cost the administration more than $1 million in legal fees.