MISSOURI
The New York Times
By JOHN ELIGON and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: December 2, 2012
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the three months since Bishop Robert W. Finn became the first American prelate convicted for failing to report a pedophile priest, lay people and victims’ advocates have repeatedly called for his resignation.
Now, recent interviews and a private survey by a company working for the Roman Catholic diocese here show for the first time that a significant number of the bishop’s own priests have lost confidence in him.
Bishop Finn, who oversees the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, is serving two ears of court supervised probation after his conviction in September on a single misdemeanor count. The survey by Church Development, a consulting firm the diocese hired to run a capital campaign, was of 40 priests. In the 32 responses obtained by The New York Times, half of them seriously doubted whether the bishop should continue as their leader, and several suggested that he resign.
“I think it would be easier for us to move forward without Bishop Finn as our bishop,” the Rev. Michael Clary, the pastor at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Lee’s Summit, Mo., which is part of Bishop Finn’s diocese, said in an interview. He added, however, that the bishop’s resignation may not be the only way forward.
Such sentiments raise the question of whether Bishop Finn can successfully continue to oversee a diocese of nearly 87 parishes and more than 130,000 people, or whether he will go the way of Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who gave up his post in Boston a decade ago after an outcry over his practice of reassigning priests accused of abuse to new parishes. An online petition calling for Bishop Finn’s resignation has collected 110,000 signatures to date.
But the bishop also has a strong base of supporters who contend that the critical priests do not appreciate Bishop Finn’s doctrinally conservative approach. He belongs to Opus Dei, a conservative Roman Catholic organization.
“Yes, there is a divide in the presbyterate, but in my opinion it’s the same old tired divide that has existed from the day he arrived,” the Rev. Vince Rogers, the pastor at St. Andrew the Apostle in Gladstone, Mo., and a 20-year veteran of the diocese, wrote in an e-mail. “In a word, some of the priests wish that we had a more liberal bishop, and they are willing to use any means to achieve that end.”
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