April 13, 2012|Mary Sanchez | Tribune Media Services
But if certain church hierarchs don't adhere to the rules, if they fall back on their own judgments rather than those of law enforcement, children will still be at risk. That's what happened in Kansas City.
In May 2010, the principal of a parochial school wrote a chilling letter to the diocese complaining that Fr. Shawn Ratigan was behaving inappropriately with young girls. Nothing appears to have been done in the priest's case until the following December, when questionable photos of young girls and toddlers were found on Ratigan's computer. Finn finally moved the priest to a mission of nuns to get him away from parochial school children. Neither he nor any other church official reported to police about the images, even though state law required them to. Nor did Finn apprise a diocesan review board, in place to help oversee such issues, of the full concerns about Ratigan
The following Easter Sunday, Ratigan is accused of taking "close-up shots of the crotch area" of a 12-year-old girl. She's one of five girls in a federal pornography indictment against the priest, and allegedly had been photographed naked by Ratigan as a 6-year-old. He has pleaded innocent.
Bishop Finn apologized twice to the faithful for mishandling the Ratigan case. That was before a grand jury indicted Finn for failing to protect children. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of a year in prison a
What troubles Catholics about the Kansas City scandal is not the lack of a policy on the church's part. It's the failure to shift attitudes among the hierarchy.
Kansas City is not the only case of failure. Another prosecution is ongoing in Philadelphia against Monsignor William Lynn, who once supervised more than 800 priests in the archdiocese. He is accused of allowing priests with a history of abusing children to remain in a position to prey on them.
Neither case is mentioned in detail by the bishops conference audit report, but both cases suggest that high church officials have failed in their commonsense responsibility to report suspected child sexual abuse to authorities immediately. That duty should be obvious to any adult, whether they are a teacher, a camp counselor or the bishop.
nd a $1,000 fine
No comments:
Post a Comment