Pope appoints new bishop for Kansas City-St. Joseph

By Robert A. Cronkleton
Kansas City Star
September 15, 2015

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article35300139.html

Pope Francis has appointed Springfield-Cape Girardeau Bishop James V. Johnston to be the seventh bishop for Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, the Vatican’s press office announced Tuesday morning.

He succeeds Bishop Robert Finn, who resigned in April, nearly three years after being convicted of failing to report suspected child abuse by a priest.

A former engineer who became a priest in 1990, Johnston will continue to lead the Springfield-Cape Giradeau diocese until his Nov. 4 installation as bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

During his Springfield tenure, Johnston helped establish Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri, encouraged candidates to become priests and supported the Catholic Worker movement.

He also spoke against the death penalty, same sex-marriage and a proposed Springfield anti-discrimination ordinance that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s list of protected classes.

When President Barack Obama expressed support for gay marriage in 2012, Johnston called it a regrettable decision and said, “Equating same sex unions with true marriage is unjust, and will lead to a further deconstruction of our nation’s culture and well-being.”

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann will introduce Johnston to Chancery staff at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Catholic Center, 20 W. Ninth St. in Kansas City. Naumann, of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, has been the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese’s apostolic administrator since Finn’s resignation.

The 55-year-old Johnston, who was born in Knoxville, Tenn., was ordained the sixth bishop of the Diosese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in March 2008, according to biographical information posted on diocesan websites.

The oldest of four children, he was active in Boy Scouts as a child and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn., where he earned his bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering.

Prior to entering the seminary, he worked for a few years as an electronic engineer in Houston. He attended the Saint Meinrad Seminary in Indiana where he earned his Master of Divinity degree.

He was ordained a priest in June 1990. He obtained a license in Canon Law at Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., in 1996. He served as chancellor and Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Knoxville, as well as several parish ministries.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of the Interior awarded Johnston and two others priests the Citizens Award for Bravery for helping save a family in danger of plunging over a waterfall in Glacier National Park in Montana.

While in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he was a member of the Committee on Child and Youth Protection and the Subcommittee on the Catechism.

Johnston takes over the leadership of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese at a time it’s recovering from a child sexual abuse scandal.

Finn was convicted in September 2012 for failing to notify authorities about a priest who later pleaded guilty to production of child pornography. That priest, Shawn Ratigan, was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison and has since been removed from the priesthood.

Finn stepped down as leader of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on April 21, nearly three years after he became the most senior U.S. Roman Catholic prelate convicted of criminal charges related to the church's child sexual abuse scandal.

Neither Finn nor the Vatican provided a specific reason for the resignation, but the Vatican said that Finn cited the code of canon law that allows bishops to resign early for illness or some "grave" reason that makes them unfit for office.