KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
[The Father Lockwood letter]
[Letter from Jean Peters Baker, prosecutor]
Brian Roewe | May. 6, 2015 NCR Today
KANSAS CITY, MO.
A priest’s letter alleging political motivations for the prosecution of Bishop Robert Finn prompted responses Wednesday from both the local prosecutor and the apostolic administrator of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese.
Fr. Gregory Lockwood, parochial administrator of Christ the King Parish in southern Kansas City and a close friend of Finn, said while mistakes occurred in the case of former priest Shawn Ratigan, currently serving 50 years in prison for child pornography, he questioned the legal process that led to Finn’s 2012 misdemeanor conviction.
Finn resigned April 21 as head of the diocese, with Kansas City, Kan., Archbishop Joseph Naumann named as its administrator. In October 2011, Finn and the diocese were charged with failure to report suspected child abuse in relation to Ratigan, who pled guilty in 2012 on federal charges of possessing and producing child pornography. In September 2012, a Jackson County judge found Finn guilty on one misdemeanor count of failing to report.
“There were definitely mistakes made in handling the situation by people who, it turned out, were in over their heads, but there was never any malice, or impulse to cover up anything,” Lockwood said in a letter inserted in the weekend bulletin addressed to Christ the King parishioners.
He continued: “There is no forbearance or forgiveness for this man who pled no contest to a politically motivated charge filed by an ambitious prosecutor with strong ties to the abortion industry, so that he might save his local church the pain and cost of a public trial. The statute used was not even applicable to what happened, but such is our legal and political society.”
The accusation of ulterior motives led Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who brought the charges against Finn, to respond by saying Lockwood’s letter contained “misinformation” and “misstatements.”
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