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| Why Bishop Finn Deserves Indictment By Rod Dreher American Conservative October 16, 2011 www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2011/10/16/why-bishop-finn-deserves-indictment/ As you may know, Kansas City Catholic Bishop Robert Finn was indicted the other day on misdemeanor charges related to failure report child pornography found on a priest's laptop to authorities. On the comments thread of my initial post on this news, my friend (and Catholic) Leroy Huizenga cites an angry blog post from a Catholic source who believes Bp Finn has been unjustly attacked by a pro-abortion prosecutor, and wonders (Leroy does) if I'm going to end up "backtracking" on my approval of the Finn indictment. Leroy is a serious man and a serious Christian. His concern prompted me to go to the Diocese of Kansas City's website and read the relevant sections of the diocese's independent investigative commission report that is, those having to do with the case of Father Shawn Ratigan, now under federal child pornography indictment, whose case led to Bp Finn's indictment by a grand jury for failing to report the diocese's discovery of child porn on his laptop to police as the law requires. Having gone over the facts of the case as presented by the diocese's own investigative panel, I am completely confident that this indictment was merited, and that the idea that this represents some sort of liberal-secularist attack on the Church, and especially on Bishop Finn for being a doctrinal conservative, is baseless. The only serious question I have about the indictment is why the grand jury did not indict Msgr Murphy, the diocese's vicar general, who comes across as the real bad guy in all this. Nevertheless, the evidence put forward in the diocese's own investigation which is not, let me make clear, the same thing as the grand jury investigation gives clear cause, to my mind, justifying Bp Finn's indictment, and the indictment of the diocese (because this was a systemic failure, not merely a personal failure by the bishop). What is most shocking is how Bp Finn and Msgr Murphy (especially!) seemed focused only on a narrow reading of the law in what was plainly an effort to avoid having to go to the police with the Ratigan case. In other words, they had what they clearly suspected was a child sexual predator in their clergy which is why, apparently, they told him to stay away from kids and stay off the Internet but didn't tell the police because they assumed that because all the photos of little girls' vaginas found on the priest's laptop didn't depict actual sex acts, they weren't technically compelled to report this to the cops. They were wrong about that, but the legalistic mindset here is jaw-dropping in its lack of concern for the welfare of children. I'm going to discuss this in a bit more detail below the jump. Fair warning: I'm going to quote passages from the diocese's investigative report to show why I believe this indictment was just. There are some explicit details about the photographs found on the laptop details that some of you may not want to read about. If not, don't click past this jump. One thing you should know, though, if you don't read any further. The diocese is claiming that it did in fact alert police in a timely fashion about what was on the laptop. This is based on an informal phone call that Msgr Murphy, the vicar general, had with a high-ranking police official who was also on the diocese's Independent Review Board (IRB), in which he described not showed, described a single image found on the laptop, and asked the cop if that constituted child pornography. The description prompted a general opinion from the police captain that no, a photo like the one Msgr Murphy described would not fit the definition of child pornography. The diocesan investigators later found that that conversation was likely the key to the diocese's behavior in all that followed. That is to say, Msgr Murphy relied on a general opinion given to him by a police officer who had not seen the image in question, and who had no idea that hundreds of images had been found on Fr Ratigan's laptop, drive its decision to keep the troubling situation with Fr Ratigan from the authorities. It is plain to me that Msgr Murphy was desperate to find any reason at all not to turn over this child porn fiend priest to the cops. What's more, after Bp Finn and others in diocesan leadership learned the full extent of Fr Ratigan's pornographic trove, they ought to have immediately realized their initial error, and rectified it. It appears, though, that they relied instead on legalism, as opposed to a common-sense reading of the law, to avoid doing what they plainly ought to have done. Why do I say this? Read on for a description of the photographs found on Fr Ratigan's laptop, and how it was handled. If you aren't willing to inform yourself of the details of this case, I understand; it's awful to contemplate. But do then refrain from saying that Bp Finn is being hounded unfairly by anti-Catholic bigots. If you read the details and draw that conclusion, I will disagree, but I will respect that you at least examined the evidence. But if you don't familiarize yourself with the details details from the diocese's own investigation of itself then your opinion is not worth much, IMHO.Here is what was found on Fr. Ratigan's laptop, and how it was discovered. In December 2010, Fr Ratigan asked a computer technician to work on his computer. In so doing, the technician, Kes, found something disturbing, and showed it to a deacon in the parish (I apologize for the formatting problems; I can't get the text from the report to reproduce cleanly): Deacon Lewis and Mr. Kes both remember that as Mr. Kes attempted to show Deacon Lewis what he had found, his hands were shaking. The experienced technician, nearly unable to operate the laptop, directed Deacon Lewis to the nude photo he found. According to Deacon Lewis, the picture showed a very young girl in a diaper, from the waist Deacon Lewis got the laptop to Msgr Murphy, the diocese's vicar general, who, according to the investigation, handled the matter this way. "Capt. Smith" is the police captain he phoned informally; "the Firm" is the law firm the diocese hired to conduct the investigation of the way it handled this affair: Capt. Smith told the Firm that Msgr. Murphy informed him of the following facts: that a computer belonging to a priest contained a single picture of a nude girl; that it was a 87 As the laptop was being delivered to the chancery, Msgr Murphy informed Bp Finn that they had a situation on their hands. Note well that Msgr Murphy called Capt Smith before he had received the laptop. At that point, Murphy only knew that a single nude image of a girl's torso had been found on the laptop. That was about to change, once Julie Creech, the head of the diocese's technology department, examined the laptop's hard drive: Ms. Creech found hundreds of photographs of young children, primarily girls. Although these were clothed images, she found them disturbing. There were, for example, photographs of girls in swimsuits climbing up the ladder of a slide that had been taken from below, focused on the girls' crotch areas. Other photographs had been taken from Creech told the Firm (that is, the investigators) that after reviewing this, she told Msgr Murphy to call the police. The diocese's communications director was also informed of the problem, and says she told Murphy the same thing. Murphy says he doesn't remember this. The next day, Creech was so upset by what she found that she alerted her supervisor, and they reviewed the material together. They wrote a memorandum for Msgr Murphy, which read in part: Julie found the following: hundreds of photos of girls mostly under the age of Now, if you were the vicar general, and you had this information from your people, what would you think? What would you do? Wouldn't you realize that Fr Ratigan was a seriously messed up priest, and that he was a clear and present danger to children? Wouldn't you wonder whether any of the children in the photographs were kids from his own parish? The next day, Fr. Ratigan attempted suicide. Msgr Murphy spoke to the bishop: Msgr. Murphy told the Bishop of Fr. Ratigan's suicide attempt, the situation with the laptop, and Ms. Creech's findings, although So, at this point and remember, we're talking about only a day or so after the discovery of the pornographic photographs Bp Finn knows about the photos, but had not seen them. He knows that Murphy spoke to a police captain who told him that a photograph of a nude child does not in and of itself constitute child pornography under Missouri law. Murphy then contacted the diocese's lawyer, Jon Haden, provided the Creech memo, with some of the photographs she found, and requested his professional advice. Haden told the diocese that based on what he saw, this wasn't child porn. The diocesan report, which was written by independent lawyers, indicates that this was terrible advice: Sexually explicit conduct is defined at § 573.010(18). The term includes "lascivious More from the report: In his interview, Mr. Haden recalled that Msgr. Murphy's sole request for advice After Fr. Ratigan recovered from the suicide attempt, Bp Finn sent him to Pennsylvania for evaluation by the Catholic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, apparently (according to the report) having decided that he would figure out what to do with Fr. Ratigan based on what the psychiatrist said. Note well that this is a separate issue from whether or not the law compelled Bp Finn and the diocese to report its discovery to the authorities. Still, it's significant. From the report: Fr. Ratigan traveled to Pennsylvania on January 9, 2011, for his initial evaluation, Amazing. Principal Hess was the parochial school official who first reported Fr. Ratigan's strange behavior around children to the diocese. Fr. Ratigan claimed at the time that she was persecuting him. And now, a psychiatrist concludes that the priest collected naked pictures of little girls not because he is a pedophile, but because he was depressed over his belief that his principal was picking on him. I'm not a mental health professional, obviously, and I haven't seen the details of Ratigan's case. But man, talk about legalistic hair-splitting! Bishop Finn also decided not to tell his own Investigative Review Board, even though they were established precisely for this reason. Why not? And there's this: Moreover, the Diocese made no effort to notify the parents and families at St. Think about that for a second. The diocese has discovered that the priest of St. Patrick's parish had an extensive collection of naked photos of little girls possibly including their own, given how Fr. Ratigan was known for constantly taking photographs. But the Bishop decided that neither these parents nor parents in other parishes where Fr. Ratigan had served, needed to know about the priest's hobby, because that would cause moral panic. Damn right it would! They probably also would have demanded that the police become involved. Once again, as we have so many times, we see a Catholic bishop deciding on his own that the laity doesn't need to learn any damaging information about their priests, information that is vital to the protection of their children from sexual predation, because keeping the laity in the dark is for their own good. Funny how the good of the ordinary people in the pews so neatly coincides with the good of their bishop, who preferred to keep things quiet and handle things quietly. Bp Finn sent Fr Ratigan to live in a religious community. He told him to stay away from children, and to stay off the Internet. Of course Fr Ratigan flagrantly disobeyed. Finally, things reached a breaking point. From the report: On April 19, 2011, Msgr. Murphy contacted Capt. Rick Smith [the police official Murphy had initially reached out to by phone] and advised him that he needed to discuss an issue with him following his upcoming knee surgery. According to Capt. Smith, on the morning of May 11, 2011, he met with Msgr. Murphy to discuss the The next day, not having heard from Msgr Murphy, Capt. Smith contacted the appropriate authorities, and this became a criminal matter. Independent investigators observed that even though Msgr Murphy was the main bad actor here, at every point in this process, anybody who knew what was on Fr. Ratigan's laptop could have and should have called the police. Why didn't they? They had it within their power, and within their responsibility, to inform the cops that they had hard physical evidence that Fr. Ratigan was a possible child sexual predator. They should have let the police sort out the legalities here. Plus, after all the revelations of the past 10 years of how an institutional culture of cover-up, denial, and buck-passing allowed hundreds of Catholic children and minors to be molested by priests, it never should have been a question in their minds to trust Bp Finn and Msgr Murphy to make this call. When news broke, local Catholics were outraged. The diocese organized "listening sessions" to manage the public reaction, and had participants engage in an asinine Stuart Smalley-ish exercise in which they were instructed to write down a "hurt" and then write down a "hope." Among the "hurts" written down by angry parents: "The images of my daughter's private areas that the FBI showed me, they are Exactly. If the charges against Bishop Finn are proven in court, I hope the judge throws the book at him. Start putting these bishops in jail, and you'll see this culture of legalism and clericalism dry up overnight. In Philadelphia earlier this year, a grand jury indicted the local version of Msgr Murphy for his role in covering up and reassigning alleged pederast priests. It was assumed by many that the local bishop at the time of the alleged offenses, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, ought to have been indicted, but that it was decided that going after an elderly cardinal in court was unacceptable, for whatever reason perhaps because no US bishop had ever been indicted for his handling of clerical sexual misconduct involving children. That line has now been crossed in Kansas City. Good. Being a bishop does not make you above the law. I have no idea what personal biases, if any, the Kansas City prosecutor has against the Roman Catholic Church. Based on the diocese's own investigation (read the entire report here) of the Ratigan affair and a subsequent, less serious case, it seems plain to me that there is ample justification for an indictment. Whether it's sufficient grounds for a conviction remains to be seen. Even if charges against Bishop Finn and his staff are not convicted of criminal offenses, the facts already known in this case are damning. Who can ever trust these people again? After all this time, how many do-overs do Catholic bishops expect? UPDATE: According to a written report that Mrs. Hess, the Catholic school principal, filed with the Diocese when she formally complained about Fr. Ratigan's behavior around children, Fr. Ratigan tried to protect himself by appealing to Catholic solidarity. He reportedly complained that "a teacher who's not even Catholic is giving me trouble" about the way he behaves around children. We've got to stick together or the anti-Catholic bigots win! Classic. UPDATE.2: In his analysis of the indictment and its historical context, the widely respected Catholic journalist John L. Allen writes: If Finn is convicted of the Class A misdemeanor under Missouri law of "failure to report suspected child abuse," he would, in a sense, be following in the footsteps of Bishop Pierre Pican of the Bayeux-Lisieux diocese in France, who was convicted of a similar charge a decade ago. Incidentally, before he became a bishop, then-Father Finn edited the St. Louis archdiocesan newspaper. In that capacity, he refused an ad for a church lecture to be given by Allen and Robert Blair Kaiser, journalists affiliated with liberal Catholicism. Kaiser wrote at the time for Newsweek, and Allen was (and is) with the liberal National Catholic Reporter. Allen, as many of you will know, is well-respected by both liberals and conservatives in the Church for playing it straight in his reporting; some on the Church left have castigated him for not being more of a progressive advocate in his reporting. According to a report on the ad controversy: "Perhaps the lecture was very, very good," said Finn. "But we have a policy of rejecting anything that we think would not be helpful to our readers. So, it would be in my purview to make a decision like that on the lecture" True enough. But some wondered why Father Finn approved ads for religious pilgrimages led by a Catholic priest who was defrocked over sex abuse charges, but continued to present himself to the faithful as "Father." UPDATE.3: I was wondering if Fr. Shawn Ratigan was a theological conservative, and if that might have had anything to do with the kid gloves with which Bishop Finn, also a theological conservative, treated him. I found this from a Kansas City Star report. "Shawn was conservative," Kerwin recalled. "He would say, 'There was a wrong way and the church's way.' I would say to him, 'The church was not always right.' Yes, well. One of the earliest and most difficult lessons I learned in covering the abuse scandal is that you can never, ever tell the bad guys from the good guys based on whether or not they are faithful to the Magisterium that is, whether or not they are orthodox Catholics. Would that you could! A very conservative priest told me early on not to make that mistake; there are scoundrels who hide behind their Catholic orthodoxy, he said, and use it to disarm the suspicions of the faithful. The late Father Richard John Neuhaus was one of the most intellectually sophisticated Catholics in the world, and a defender of Catholic orthodoxy. But he too was hoodwinked by this belief, most embarrassingly in his staunch defense of Father Marcial Maciel, of whom, Neuhaus wrote in First Things, he believed was "morally certain" was not guilty of the lurid sexual abuse accusations made against him. After Pope Benedict moved against Maciel, Neuhaus backed down. We later learned that things with Maciel were actually worse than most people knew. Father Neuhaus was known for saying that the solution to the abuse crisis in the Church was "fidelity, fidelity, fidelity." And this was true, but a tautology. It's like saying the solution to the crime problem is to obey the law. It is obviously true that if priests and others had been faithful to what the Church taught, none of this would have happened. The real question is, why did bishops and other churchmen who perfectly well knew that child molestation was a grave sin and crime turn a blind eye to it, literally or in effect? I take it that Bishop Finn, since 2004 a member of the priestly order affiliated with Opus Dei, the strongly conservative religious order, believes in "fidelity, fidelity, fidelity." But how much good did that do the children and families in the conservative Father Shawn Ratigan's parishes? Liberal or conservative, we always find ways to justify the clay feet our ideological allies. When the progressive Catholic hero Bishop Rembert Weakland was found to have had a boyfriend to whom he funneled tens of thousands of dollars, certain leftie Catholics rationalized going easy on Weakland, who was, in their view, right about so many important things that we should overlook or minimize his wrongdoing. Once I was told by a Catholic insider that a particular conservative Catholic publication well knew that Bishop X. was bad news on tolerating sexual misconduct among a hyper-orthodox religious order (which was later dismantled), but they refrained from calling him out in their publication because Bishop X. was known as a supporter of the Latin mass. The conservative Catholic blogger Mark Shea has been calling out supporters of the pro-life activist priest Fr. Frank Pavone, who has gotten crossways of his bishop because the bishop has put some apparently reasonable restrictions on Fr. Pavone as he tries to sort out Fr. Pavone's finances with respect to his role as an activist. Some of Pavone's more fanatical supporters have turned on the bishop with the sort of invective you expect from foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Catholics. For them, Fr. Pavone can't have done wrong, because he's done so much good work on behalf of the unborn. Et cetera. UPDATE.4: From today's KC Star: Jim Fern of Overland Park said news coverage of the scandal has only fanned the controversy. See? UPDATE.5: Back in June, when the independent report came out in Kansas City, Deacon Greg Kandra reported on his blog that a Kansas City man who had been studying for the diaconate decided not to accept ordination as a result of Bishop Finn's scandalous failure. The man wrote to his parish, where he'd been for 30 years: Because of the recent disclosure of failures within the diocese to protect the people of St. Patrick Parish from harm, I cannot promise respect or obedience that is a part of the diaconate ordination. To me this breakdown in the system that was put in place to protect God's children is inexcusable. In other words, he could not promise obedience to a bishop he could not trust. |
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