UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 1, 2013
Here’s a simple question:
If you have a phone and know about evidence of child sex crimes, you call police, right?
Doesn’t sound hard does it? Well, unless you’re one of Missouri’s two most influential Catholic bishops …
Example one: “Just Say No to Reporting” Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn
In 2010, a Catholic school principal gave Finn’s second-in-command a single-spaced, three-page letter detailing all kinds of inappropriate behavior by Fr. Shawn Ratigan. You can read it here. Soon after, a church staffer found hundreds of photos of naked and partially naked girls—all taken by Fr. Ratigan.
But it was almost a year before anyone on Finn’s payroll managed to get that evidence to police.
The end result: in 2012, Finn became the first US bishop to ever be convicted for failing to report child sex abuse suspicions.
Example two: “Make sure they don’t cash the check” St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson
St. Louis priest Fr. Joseph Jiang has been charged with first degree child endangerment for repeatedly molested a girl as recently as last summer. Legal documents say Jiang admitted his crimes first to the girl’s parents and then to Archbishop Carlson. But in between, Jiang left a $20,000 check with the girl’s parents hoping, prosecutors say, to silence them.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.