Catholic bishop normally governs pretty much unchecked in his diocese — only the pope can dislodge a bishop. And each time Catholics celebrate Mass in Kansas City, Mo., they pray for Bishop Robert Finn, right after they pray for Pope Francis.
But some Catholics here, like David Biersmith, a Eucharistic minister, refuse to go along.
"When the priest says that, you know, you're supposed say it with him, but I just leave that out," Biersmith says. "I just don't say it. Because he's not my bishop, as far as I'm concerned."
Much of the discontent in Kansas City has to do with an incident four years ago. A computer technician found hundreds of lewd photos of young girls on a priest's laptop. The priest was Shawn Ratigan, and it wasn't the first sign that he was a pedophile.
But Finn didn't tell authorities. Instead, he sent Ratigan to a therapist, switched Ratigan's job and asked him to stay away from children. Ratigan didn't, and months later a diocese official finally reported him.
Ratigan was sentenced to 50 years in prison for child pornography, and Finn drew two years of probation for shielding him. Finn is now the subject of a rare Vatican investigation that began in September.
Jeff Weis was once just a regular parishioner in the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City, but after Ratigan was sentenced, he knew he had to act.
"What I was looking for was, what is the church's response to this?" he says. "What is the bishop's response?"
The church set up new protocols for reporting child abuse and hired a former federal prosecutor to investigate the Ratigan case. But Finn stayed on as bishop, so Weis launched an online petition asking the pope to remove him. It has drawn more than 260,000 signatures.
Other parishioners sent the same message in different ways, and then last fall, the Vatican dispatched an archbishop here to investigate.
"Out of the blue I got a call, and they were arranging meetings for the archbishop to talk with people about the Bishop Finn issues," says Jim Caccamo, who led a board for the diocese to advise Finn on sexual abuse issues.
While Caccamo calls Finn a wonderful, holy man, he can't fathom why he failed to report Ratigan to authorities.
"Oh my gosh!" he says. "In this environment today, when the church is moving to protect its children, how, how, how could that happen?"
A lot of people are asking the same question. James Connell, a priest and canon lawyer in Milwaukee, says Finn broke protocols the church set up after the huge sexual abuse crisis in 2002. Even high-ranking church officials have publicly weighed in.
Cardinal Sean O'Malley from Boston, a close adviser to Pope Francis, addressed the Finn issue on 60 Minutes last November.
"It's a question that the Holy See needs to address urgently," O'Malley told CBS's Norah O'Donnell. "There's a recognition of that from Pope Francis."
Francis recently demoted Finn's closest ally in Rome, a conservative cardinal named Raymond Burke. But Finn still has plenty of support in Kansas City.
"Well, I love Bishop Finn," says John Purk, a recently ordained deacon in the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese. "He's a great friend. He's a supporter. You know exactly what he's thinking because it just rolls off his tongue."
Like Finn, Purk holds traditional Catholic views of marriage, birth control, abortion and theology. It's a belief system that Purk says reveals the deity of Jesus.
"Now, a lot of people have a problem with that, just like they had a problem with Jesus," he says. "And so, the problems that Jesus encountered, this bishop encounters."
Purk says Finn faced a real dilemma over Ratigan. He says the bishop got conflicting advice, and he notes that Ratigan attempted suicide when his lewd photographs came to light.
"I think the bishop did the best that he could have done, with the information that he had, having to balance mercy and justice with a man who was suicidal," Purk says.
American Catholics are looking to see how the Vatican balances the traditional autonomy of bishops with the need to better address the church's ongoing sexual abuse issue and the pope's selection for leader of the diocese in Kansas City.
Kansas City Catholics Divided Over Vatican Investigation Of Bishop | WPSU
More about the investigation
An investigation of a diocese by another bishop, known formally as a visitation, normally occurs when the pope or one of the Vatican's congregations have concerns about the leadership of the diocese.
A former chancellor of the Kansas City diocese also confirmed to NCR Monday the ongoing investigation, saying he had helped in an effort to have a Vatican review of Finn's leadership.
Jude Huntz, who served as the diocese's second-in-command from 2011 until last month, said he had given advice to several Kansas City-area Catholics who wanted to write to the Vatican's apostolic nuncio in Washington expressing concerns about Finn.
"I hope that there is a leadership change in the diocese of Kansas City St-Joseph," said Huntz, who now serves as the director of the Chicago archdiocese's Office for Peace and Justice. "And that's been my hope for quite some time."
Related: "Kansas City Catholics ask Pope Francis to investigate bishop," Feb. 18; "Letter calls upon Pope Francis to investigate Kansas City bishop," Aug. 25
Three people who said they spoke to Prendergast as part of the investigation independently confirmed details of the archbishop's visit but asked to remain anonymous because they had been told not to divulge details of their interviews.
Prendergast's assignment, one of the individuals said, "was to determine whether or not Bishop Finn is fit to be a leader ... whether he had the qualities of leadership to run a diocese."
According to that source, the archbishop said he was going to speak to both those who were supportive of Finn and those who had concerns.
"I didn't think he was fit to be a leader," the source said. "I told the archbishop I thought [Finn] was holy but didn't have the organizational skills for the diocese."
The second person said Prendergast took time to listen to all concerns that were expressed and was "very receptive."
"He just was so open to listen," the person said. "He was there to learn."
The individuals said Prendergast told them he was going to make a report of his findings and send it to the Congregation for Bishops for review.
"They may accept or reject whatever I suggest," Prendergast said, according to one of the individuals.
A third individual, a layman and longtime Kansas City parishioner, said he met with Prendergast "and a priest taking notes" for about 30 minutes at a residence in Overland Park, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City.
This person, who said he has already written to the Vatican's ambassador in Washington about Finn, told NCR: "[Prendergast and the priest] said they were there to evaluate and make a recommendation if there was a need to make a change in leadership" in the Kansas City diocese.
Finn and his diocese have been under scrutiny for several years, particularly surrounding the handling of sexual misconduct by Shawn Ratigan, a former priest who was found guilty in federal court in September 2013 of producing child pornography and sentenced to 50 years in jail. Ratigan was laicized in January.
In September 2012, Finn was found guilty in one Missouri county court of the misdemeanor count. Earlier, in November 2011, he made an agreement with prosecutors in another county to suspend misdemeanor charges as long as he agreed to give prosecutors there immediate oversight of the diocese's sexual abuse reporting procedures.
The Kansas City diocese has also been facing a number of lawsuits for sexual abuse claims and has made a number of large financial settlements in recent years. In 2012, the diocesan paper estimated the diocese had spent $1.39 million for the bishops' legal defense and almost $4 million for other claims.
The cumulative amount spent by the diocese on sexual abuse claims and defense is a "staggering figure," Huntz said. "[The Vatican] needs to see those numbers and recognize it for what it is."
Huntz also said that to offset expenses, the diocese had raised parish assessments, the money the diocese collects from parishes, with some "going up 33 percent." Huntz attributed higher operating costs to increased insurance payments.
"A parish can't afford those things," he said. "It's really hurting a lot of the parishes from a financial point of view."
Likewise, the number of Catholics in Kansas City has declined, Huntz said.
"Ten years ago ... when Bishop Finn came to Kansas City, the diocese had 165,000 Catholics," he said. "This past year, I submitted our official statistics to Rome, and we only had 128,000 Catholics. That's a 25 percent decline."
News of the Kansas City investigation follows reports last week that the investigation of a diocese in Paraguay led to that bishop's removal. Pope Francis removed Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of the diocese of Ciudad del Este on Sept. 25, following a visitation to that diocese by Spanish Cardinal Santos Abril y Castelló, archpriest of Rome's Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Huntz said the situation in the Kansas City diocese is "something everybody should care about."
"We are all united in the larger church, and to see a diocese go downhill like it has should make everybody concerned."
More about the investigation clock on the following: http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/kansas-city-bishop-robert-finn-under-vatican-investigation
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