Donohue Repeats His �no Porn␝ Exoneration of Finn
Spiritual Politics
"I know it when I see it," Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote in a 1964 pornography case. Evidently, Bill Donohue doesn't. Bill's got his knickers in a twist because the New York Times has stated that Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn's criminal 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.” Asserteth Donohue: "That statement is factually wrong." He then goes on to argue, as he has before, that what was discovered on Ratigan's computer was not pornography. So what was Finn convicted of? He doesn't say. Factually speaking, Ratigan did have child porn. Here's a passage from the Graves Report, commissioned by the diocese of K.C. itself, describing a series of the priest's photos as described by diocesan information systems manager Julie Creech: The first showed a little girl, face visible, standing and holding a blanket. In a “staged sequence,” the photos depicted a girl lying in a bed, from the waist down, and focused on the crotch. The girl was wearing a diaper, but with each photo, the diaper was moved gradually to expose her genitals. By the last photo, her genitals were fully exposed. According to Ms. Creech, there were approximately six to eight pictures in this sequence of photos; two displayed fully exposed genitals and one displayed her fully exposed buttocks. The little girl’s face was not visible in the staged sequence, but due to her apparent physical size and the fact that the photos were in the same folder, Ms. Creech assumed the photos were of the same little girl whose face appeared in the initial picture.That's not just pornography, Bill, it's the kind of child abuse that is supposed to get a priest reported to the civil authorities. How do I know this? It's right there in the USCCB's Rome-approved "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," which mandates compliance with civil reporting statutes for the "grave delict" of "the acquisition, possession, or distribution by a cleric of pornographic images of minors under the age of fourteen, for purposes of sexual gratification, by whatever means or using any technology." It was for failure to report Ratigan for such acquisition and possession, as mandated by Missouri law, that Finn was convicted. The conviction, let us note, amounted to a guilty plea. Finn stipulated the facts of the case and the judge declared him guilty. Let us also note, for the record, that Finn pretends to a great awareness of the evils of pornography. In 2007, he treated his flock to a lengthy pastoral letter on the subject, and did not hesitate to issue such severe judgments as the following: Pornography harms others. It exploits other people, usually women but also men and children. To engage in pornography is to support this terrible and scarring exploitation. To participate financially in this contributes to an industry that perpetuates a grave moral evil.It's been three months since Finn's conviction, and (as the Times article reveals) there are even priests in his diocese willing to say publicly that he should be gone. But neither his fellow bishops nor the Vatican has uttered so much as a peep about the first American hierarch to be convicted of covering up a case of clerical sexual abuse. It's called hypocrisy. And we know it when we see it.
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