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	The Report of the Independent Investigation of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph September 1, 2011 http://www.diocese-kcsj.org/_docs/8-31-11_Report_of_Independent_Investigation.pdf [pdf] Executive Summary On May 19, 2011, Father Shawn Ratigan, a priest of the Diocese of Kansas City‐St. Joseph (the "Diocese"), was arrested and charged under Missouri's child pornography law. Two weeks later, another Diocesan priest, Father Michael Tierney, was removed from his parish by Bishop Robert Finn, the Diocesan ordinary, after a finding that recent reports of Fr. Tierney's sexual abuse of minors in the early 1970s were credible. Bishop Finn publicly apologized for mistakes in the handling of the Fr. Ratigan case, stating, "Things must change. I also have to change." Bishop Finn announced a "Five‐Point Plan" which, among other things, called for an independent investigation into the Diocese's handling of the Ratigan and Tierney cases and its sexual abuse policies and training program. In mid‐June 2011, the Diocese asked Graves Bartle Marcus & Garrett, LLC (the "Firm"), to undertake the investigation and recommend changes to its policies and procedures. Over the past sixty days, the Firm interviewed 54 witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of documents and emails freely made available to us by the Diocese. The Diocese and its personnel fully cooperated with our investigation even as their cooperation with parallel criminal investigations and civil litigation made significant demands on their time and resources. After careful review of the evidence, the Firm has prepared factual findings and conclusions. 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 cases, the Diocesan Vicar General, Msgr. Robert Murphy, waited too long to advise the Independent Review Board ("IRB"), a body of confidential advisers to Bishop Finn, of the allegations. In Fr. Tierney's case, the failure to notify the IRB did not seriously undermine the integrity of the investigation or, in the Firm's judgment, place minors in danger. 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 improperlyconceived 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." Before he had viewed the images, Msgr. Murphy solicited an opinion from an IRB member, Capt. Rick Smith, but merely described one photograph over the telephone in a neutral manner. Msgr. Murphy also shared the images with Diocesan counsel and received an opinion that a single disturbing image did not constitute child pornography. Rather than referring the matter to the IRB for a more searching review, Msgr. Murphy allowed two technical answers to his limited questions to satisfy the Diocese's duty of diligent inquiry. Relying on these responses, he failed to timely turn over the laptop to the police. 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.
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