Bishop Finn, diocese indicted

[Andrew1960]

Some people seem to think the Graves report exonerates the Bishop

A few excepts from the Graves Report (Bolding mine)

Bishop Finn publicly apologized for mistakes in the handling of the Fr. Ratigan case, stating, “Things must change. I also have to change.”

A. Findings
The Firm’s key finding is that **Diocesan leaders failed to follow their own policies
and procedures **for responding to reports relating to Frs. Ratigan and Tierney. In both

"The flaws relating to Fr. Ratigan were more serious because neither Msgr. Murphy,
nor Bishop Finn, nor others with knowledge brought the matter to the full IRB until after
the arrest. Absent IRB guidance, Msgr. Murphy conducted a limited and improperly conceived investigation which focused on whether a specific image on Fr. Ratigan’s laptop,
which held hundreds of troubling images, met the definition of “child pornography.”

"Although Bishop Finn was unaware of some important facts learned by Msgr.
Murphy or that the police had never actually seen the pictures,** the Bishop erred in trusting Fr. Ratigan to abide by restrictions** the Bishop had placed on his interaction with children after the discovery of the laptop and Fr. Ratigan’s attempted suicide.

…
He receives notice from the school that there may be a wolf amongst the sheep. The shepherd does nothing.

When he learns of improper photos, the shepherd talks to the wolf and asks him to stay away from his sheep. Then, he goes home trusting the wolf to behave himself???
:banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[kmaaj]

No, the vicar general did nothing. Other than that Andrew, neither myself nor the bishop himself will deny -any- of that. My argument is that from a civil POV, the bishop broke no laws, and from a canonical POV, it is none of ANYONE’S business whether or not the bishop loses his job. I also believe concerning any mistakes that the bishop had made, the resolution is solely between himself and his staff and the parishioners at St. Patrick’s, and everyone else needs to butt out.

 

[kmaaj]

However, - it is simply incredible that the response was not to just turn it all over to the police.

Which is DIRECTLY the result of a breakdown in communication between the vicar general and the staff, and subsequently the vicar general and the bishop. I repeat: for the entire 5 months the bishop was under the impression that the photos had actually been shown to police and that the police chose not to respond. That false impression is directly the result of a breakdown in communication.

The institutional Church has been telling us for years that this kind of thing cannot happen. I am really amazed that the computer tech guy, who asked, I think, his two brothers, his pastor, and his wife, all of whom advised him to turn it over to the police, didn’t do it.

There are several, if not dozens, of people who qualified as “mandated reporters” LONG before any of this reached the bishop. The most important of which is the police captain and the police sergeant who were initially contacted in December. By their own KCPD rules of conduct and code of ethics, they were obliged to either investigate it themselves or refer it to the appropriate dept. the instant they received the phone call from the monsignor. Not to mention, at that very second, they became by state law “mandated reporters”.

 

[pnewton]

The institutional Church has been telling us for years that this kind of thing cannot happen.

Of course this kind of thing can happen. Looking at the positive side, case of priestly abuse are getting much more rare and, in this case, nipped quickly in the bud instead of being swept under the rug. The priest is facing charges and has been exposed. The evidence of this was in the hands of the diocese and they could have chosen to cover it up. I am not saying they acted as best they could, but I think there is no way to substantiate any deliberate criminal action.