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Fin de Finn?

MO--First Catholic official calls for Bishop Finn’s removal

For immediate release: Thursday, March 19
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, email@example.com
A member of Pope Francis’ new child sex abuse panel is calling for the removal of Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn. It’s the first time a Catholic official is publicly and explicitly pushing for Finn’s ouster.
Peter Saunders of London was tapped by Pope Francis to be on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors . He founded and heads a charity for abuse victims called NAPAC (The National Association for People Abused in Childhood).
“If we don’t see real change, if we don’t see the likes of Bishop Finn removed immediately . . .then the committee will be a pointless exercise,” Saunders told The Guardian.
Many pundits, journalists, abuse victims and concerned Catholics have advocated for Finn’s removal. But this is the first time a church official has explicitly done so. It’s especially significant that Saunders has met with Pope Francis and was appointed to the Vatican abuse panel by Francis.

For those of you out there who have swallowed the spin that Bishop Finn has been railroaded and unjustly targeted because of his orthodoxy, feel free to read my series of posts on Bishop Finn and Father Ratigan.

Or better yet, read the following as a handy summary, first published on Sept. 6, 2012.  ... There's something about Christ and how we fail Him that we can learn from Kansas City / St. Joseph Bishop Finn.

Here's what Bishop Finn did  -

Got all that?  There's a lot more, but that gives a brief overview of what Bishop Finn did.

Here's what Bishop Finn should have done -

Now I'm not saying I'm perfect.  I'm not saying I'm better than Bishop Finn.  I'm not saying we should judge the state of his soul.  In fact, I just wrote an earnest post on how we're all sinners, including me.

But I am saying this -

What we are seeing in Bishop Finn is what we see all around us.  Instead of successors to the Apostles (bishops) behaving like successors to the Apostles - willing to risk everything and follow Christ - we get middle-management bureaucrats.  A priest has abused children?  Don't tell the families!  We'll get sued!  Cover everything up.  "What would Jesus do? "  Hell, no!    Forget Christian charity, forget even human compassion, this is a corporation whose assets we've got to protect - though over a million of those assets will be used to keep my own sorry asset out of jail (even though jail time is inconceivable in a plea bargain over misdemeanors and I've really got nothing to fear).  And if I get a light sentence after all is said and done?  Well, my buddy Bishop Joe over in KC, Kansas will write another article claiming that's it's all the fault of the pro-abortion anti-Catholic media!  He'll back me up!  So will that Donohue guy who spun the whole thing last year so that everybody was at fault but me!  I'll come off smelling like a rose while Fr. Shawn Ratigan beats off to pictures of your eight-year-old daughter's crotch and panties that I refuse to tell you he took, just in case you might want to invite him over with his spy cam for her next birthday party.  And if the cops force us to tell you about it (they'll never get all the evidence, I saw to that), well, I'll hold a listening session and have you fill out a card telling me how the visual violation of your daughter and our enabling of it makes you feel.  Yeah, that's the ticket!

The lesson?

REPENT and believe.


ADDENDUM: Here's a helpful timeline the Kansas City Star has put together on this case.


ADDENDUM 2: As I wrote this week, this circling the wagons trick to defend our own, whether right or wrong, is precisely why we aren't effective evangelists.

Posted by Kevin O'Brien at 8:17 PM