KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the three months since Bishop Robert W. Finn
became the first American prelate convicted of failing to report a
pedophile priest, lay people and victims’ advocates have repeatedly
called for his resignation.
Now, recent interviews and a private survey by a company working for the
Roman Catholic diocese here show for the first time that a significant
number of the bishop’s own priests have lost confidence in him.
Bishop Finn, who oversees the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, is serving two years of court-supervised probation after his
conviction in September
on a single misdemeanor count. The survey by Church Development,
a
consulting firm the diocese hired to run a capital campaign, was of 40
priests. In the 32 responses obtained by The New York Times, half of
them
seriously doubted whether the bishop should continue as their
leader, and several suggested that he resign.
“I think it would be easier for us to move forward without Bishop Finn
as our bishop,” the Rev. Michael Clary, the pastor at Holy Spirit
Catholic Church in Lee’s Summit, Mo., which is part of Bishop Finn’s
diocese, said in an interview. He added, however, that the bishop’s
resignation may not be the only way forward.
Such sentiments raise the question of whether Bishop Finn can
successfully continue to oversee a diocese of 87 parishes and more than
130,000 people, or whether he will go the way of Cardinal Bernard F.
Law, who gave up his post in Boston a decade ago after an outcry over
his practice of reassigning priests accused of abuse to new parishes. A
national online petition calling for Bishop Finn’s resignation has
collected nearly 110,000 signatures.
But the bishop also has a strong base of supporters who contend that the
critical priests do not appreciate Bishop Finn’s doctrinally
conservative approach. He belongs to Opus Dei, a conservative Roman
Catholic organization.
“Yes, there is a divide in the presbyterate, but in my opinion it’s the
same old tired divide that has existed from the day he arrived,” the
Rev. Vince Rogers, the pastor at St. Andrew the Apostle in Gladstone,
Mo., and a 20-year veteran of the diocese, wrote in an e-mail. “In a
word, some of the priests wish that we had a more liberal bishop, and
they are willing to use any means to achieve that end.”
Bishop Finn’s conviction stemmed from
his failure to report
the Rev. Shawn Ratigan to the authorities after hundreds of
pornographic pictures that Father Ratigan had taken of young girls were
discovered on his laptop in December 2010.
The bishop sent Father Ratigan to live in a convent when the photos were
discovered. But the information about the nature and extent of the
priest’s photographs was not reported until May 2011, when a church
official went to the authorities without the approval of Bishop Finn,
who declined to comment for this article. The diocese also declined to
answer a series of questions.
Debate over the bishop’s next steps seems to have split the clergy of 70
active priests and 32 retired ones along generational lines. Older
priests generally urge the bishop to step aside, and younger ones tend
to back him.
The divisions date to seven years ago, when Bishop Finn took over the
diocese and implemented broad changes in a variety of areas, from the
tone of the diocesan newspaper to the way priests celebrate Mass.
Supporters praised him, saying that he brought the diocese more in line
with church teaching. But detractors accused him of wielding power
unilaterally, and described him as aloof and defensive.
Critics are troubled by the silence of church leaders in the United States and Rome.
Bishop Finn attended the most recent meeting of the American bishops, in
Baltimore in November — the first since his conviction — but no bishop
addressed the matter publicly. Asked to comment on Friday on Bishop
Finn’s situation, the chairman of the bishops’ child protection
committee, Bishop R. Daniel Conlon, of Joliet, Ill., declined.
Only the pope can remove a bishop from office. Several priests in Kansas
City have written to Pope Benedict XVI’s representative in the United
States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, calling for Bishop Finn to
resign. The archbishop did not respond to an e-mail requesting his
comments.
Regardless of where the diocese’s priests stand on the bishop, most find
themselves stuck between a bishop they want to see succeed and angry
parishioners.
Weekly giving at parishes is down slightly across the diocese, and
priests said some of their members were reluctant to donate because they
did not want their contributions going toward the bishop or the
diocese’s central administration. Parishioners have been turned off,
priests said, not only by the bishop’s actions but also by the fiscal
obligations of the diocese. These include the almost $1.4 million spent
on the bishop’s and the diocese’s legal fees and the potential payouts
that will result from the dozens of pending civil suits.
The survey sought to determine whether the priests believed the new
fund-raising drive to build a high school could be successful. About 65
percent of them recommended delaying the drive. Seven priests suggested a
new bishop was necessary to be successful.
Church Development has lowered its estimate of how much the capital
campaign could raise to $15 million from the $40 million it estimated
before the abuse scandal broke last year.
Festering anger and mistrust throughout the diocese present huge
challenges in persuading parishioners to open their wallets. Priests
critical of Bishop Finn said that for that to happen, he needed to admit
wrongdoing and ask for forgiveness.
“Some say he has made that apology, he has said he’s sorry, but he
hasn’t told us what he’s sorry for,” said the Rev. Matthew Brumleve,
pastor at Holy Family in Kansas City and another 20-year veteran of the
diocese. “Is he sorry he got caught? Is he sorry we don’t see things the
way he sees them? Or is he truly sorry for letting down the children of
this diocese?”
But Father Brumleve said he believed that Bishop Finn did not see the necessity of offering a more robust apology.
“That’s going to be the millstone around our neck until that happens,” he said.
During the priests’ annual retreat at a resort in the Lake of the Ozarks
in November, one priest told an anecdote about when he had been caught
speeding in Kansas. As the bishop stood before them in a windowless
room, the priest explained that he had not realized he had been driving
too fast until he had gotten pulled over and received a ticket. Even
though he did not mean to break the law, he still did, the priest said,
likening his situation to the bishop’s.
But during the meeting, Bishop Finn denied that he had done anything wrong, according to two priests there.
The bishop’s supporters raise their brows at the demands of their
brother priests for further apologies. “I believe he’s accepted
responsibility for what happened and he’s paying the price for it,” said
the Rev. Angelo Bartulica of St. Columban in Chillicothe, Mo.
“I don’t
understand what more people want.”
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postscriptum 6 pm 21 April 2015: Finn has resigned as bishop. [click] and {click}
