Does Bishop Finn Have a Future? 11-17-14

By Bill Tammeus
Bill's 'Faith Matters" Blog
November 17, 2014

http://billtammeus.typepad.com/my_weblog/2014/11/11-17-14.html


It's hard to know exactly what will happen and when but after last night's "60 Minutes" interview with Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, it looks for all the world as if the days are numbered for Bishop Robert W. Finn (pictured here) of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

O'Malley said in the interview that Pope Francis knows he must deal with Finn's situation "urgently." Finn was convicted in 2012 of a misdemeanor criminal offense of failing to report a suspected child-abusing priest to law enforcement authorties.

But Finn has remained in office despite that stain, injuring not just the local diocese in countless ways but also making it seem as if the church's hierarchy really isn't serious about disciplining bishops who tolerated sexual abuse by priests under their purview.

As The National Catholic Reporter first reported recently and notes again in this piece, earlier this fall the Vatican sent a Canadian archbishop to Kansas City to investigate Finn's leadership.

That plus O'Malley's comments cannot be reassuring for Finn, assuming he wants to keep his job. And that's my assumption, given that after his conviction he failed to do the right thing and resign. Another potential bad sign for Finn was the recent demotion of Cardinal Raymond Burke, under whom Finn served for several years when Burke was archbishop of St. Louis. This move against Burke by Pope Francis shows the pontiff's willingness to make tough personnel decisions. Perhaps Finn's removal is next.

A word of caution, however: The church moves slowly on almost all significant matters. Often that's a good thing. In this case, that slowness has been damaging. In The Kansas City Star's Saturday story about all of this, Jeff Weis, a local Catholic who has worked for the removal of Finn, put it this way: "Glaciers move faster than the Catholic Church.”

So there is no assurance that the Vatican will act within the next few days or weeks and there certainly is no assurance that all parishioners in the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese will like whoever will be appointed to replace Finn if, in fact, he's forced out.

Indeed, I don't envy the job of the bishop who will have to follow and clean up after Finn. The repair work will take years. The sooner it starts, however, the better.