Bishop Huckleberry Finn Indicted

[Lucky]

The Very Reverend Huckleberry Finn, bishop of Kansas City, Missouri, has been indicted by a grand jury there on misdemeanor charges of failing to notify officials of sexual abuse by a parish priest.

The diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was also indicted. The diocese says they did show a photo to a local cop, who said the image was not kiddie porn. But they only showed the one image, the cop says.

Tom Sawyer, attorney for the bishop, says they will fight the charges or take a raft down the river, whichever seems best when spring comes.

Bishop Finn

Yahoo News reports that Finn acknowledged earlier this year that a parish principal had raised concerns in May 2010 that the Rev. Shawn Ratigan was behaving inappropriately around children, but that he didn't read the principal's written report until this spring.

Ratigan was charged in May with three state child pornography counts, and in June with 13 federal counts of producing, possessing and attempting to produce child porn. He has pleaded not guilty and remains jailed.

After receiving the principal's concerns in 2010, Monsignor Robert Murphy, the diocese's vicar general, spoke with Ratigan about setting boundaries with children. He then gave Finn a verbal summary of the concerns and his meeting with the priest.

Finn says: "For our part, we will meet these announcements with a steady resolve and a vigorous defense." (Yeah, like wait a year to do anything!) (hehehe...an indictment is now an "announcement.")

Last December, a computer technician found on Ratigan's laptop hundreds of what he called "disturbing" images of children, most of them fully clothed with the focus on their crotch areas, and a series of pictures of a 2- to 3-year-old girl with her genitals exposed.

The parish priest, Shawn Ratigan, had hundreds of images of little kids nekkid on his computer, and the diocese and the bishop waited months to notify authorities, the charges allege. The Reverend Ratigan liked little girls.

Father Rat

http://www.kansascity.com/2011/10/14/3207527/bishop-finn-diocese-indicted.html

[Lucky]

The bishop avoided prosecution after all. It seems that the bold DA who made national headlines for the prosecution of the first bishop on sex abuse cover-up charges finally realized that after all the cameras were gone he had to live there too.

So he made a deal. If the bishop meets with him monthly for the next 5 years and spills all the gossip on priest's sexual misadventures, then the holy man can avoid prosecution himself.

This keeps the DA in a central position, keeps the cleric from having to bend over in a jail shower, and may mean that less abuse occurs. It remains to be seen.