In the annals of the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church,
most of the cases that have come to light happened years before to
children and teenagers who have long since grown into adults.
But a painfully fresh case is devastating Catholics in Kansas City, Mo.,
where a priest, who was arrested in May, has been indicted by a federal
grand jury on charges of taking indecent photographs of young girls,
most recently during an Easter egg hunt just four months ago.
Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has acknowledged that he knew of the existence of photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May.
A civil lawsuit filed last week claims that during those five months,
the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, attended children’s birthday
parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted the
Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s
First Communion.
“All these parishioners just feel so betrayed, because we knew nothing,”
said Thu Meng, whose daughter attended the preschool in Father
Ratigan’s last parish.
“And we were welcoming this guy into our homes,
asking him to come bless this or that. They saw all these signs, and
they didn’t do anything.”
The case has generated fury at a bishop who was already a polarizing
figure in his diocese, and there are widespread calls for him to resign
or even to be prosecuted.
Parishioners started a Facebook page called “Bishop Finn Must Go” and are circulating a petition.
An editorial
in The Kansas City Star in June calling for the bishop to step down
concluded that prosecutors must “actively pursue all relevant criminal
charges” against everyone involved.
Stoking much of the anger is the fact that only three years ago, Bishop
Finn settled lawsuits with 47 plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases for $10
million and agreed to a long list of preventive measures, among them to
immediately report anyone suspected of being a pedophile to law
enforcement authorities.
Michael Hunter, an abuse victim who was part of that settlement and is
now the president of the Kansas City chapter of the Survivors Network of
those Abused by Priests, said: “There were 90 nonmonetary agreements
that the diocese signed on to, and they were things like reporting
immediately to the police. And they didn’t do it. That’s really what
sickens us as much as the abuse.”
The bishop has apologized and released a “five-point plan” that he
described as “sweeping changes.”
He hired an ombudsman to field reports
of suspicious behavior and appointed an investigator to conduct an
independent review of the events and diocesan policies.
The
investigator’s report is taking longer than expected and is now due in
late August or early September, said Rebecca Summers, director of
communications in the diocese.
The bishop also replaced the vicar general involved in the case, Msgr. Robert Murphy, after he was accused of
propositioning a young man in 1984.
The diocese has delayed a capital
fund-raising campaign on the advice of its priests, a move first
reported by The National Catholic Reporter.
Bishop Finn, who was appointed in 2005, alienated many of his priests
and parishioners, and won praise from others, when he remade the diocese
to conform with his traditionalist theological views.
He is one of few
bishops affiliated with the conservative movement Opus Dei.
He canceled a model program to train Catholic laypeople to be leaders
and hired more staff members to recruit candidates for the priesthood.
He cut the budget of the Office of Peace and Justice, which focused on
poverty and human rights, and created a new Respect Life office to
expand the church’s opposition to abortion and stem cell research.
He set up a parish for a group of Catholics who prefer to celebrate the old Tridentine Mass in Latin.
Father Ratigan, 45, was also an outspoken conservative, according to a
profile in The Kansas City Star. He and a class of Catholic school
students joined Bishop Finn for the bus ride to the annual March for
Life rally in Washington in 2007.
The diocese was first warned about Father Ratigan’s inappropriate
interest in young girls as far back as 2006, according to accusations in
the civil lawsuit filed Thursday.
But there were also more recent
warnings.
In May 2010, the principal of a Catholic elementary school where Father
Ratigan worked hand-delivered a letter to the vicar general reporting
specific episodes that had raised alarms: the priest put a girl on his
lap during a bus ride and allowed children to reach into his pants
pockets for candy.
When a Brownie troop visited Father Ratigan’s house, a
parent reported finding a pair of girl’s panties in a planter, the
letter said.
Bishop Finn said at a news conference that he was given a “brief verbal
summary” of the letter at the time, but did not read it until a year
later.
In December, a computer technician discovered the photographs on Father
Ratigan’s laptop and turned it in to the diocese.
The next day, the
priest was discovered in his closed garage, his motorcycle running,
along with a suicide note apologizing to the children, their families
and the church.
Father Ratigan survived, was taken to a hospital and was then sent to
live at a convent in the diocese, where, the lawsuit and the indictment
say, he continued to have contact with children.
Parents in the school and parishioners were told only that Father
Ratigan had fallen sick from carbon monoxide poisoning. They were
stunned when he was arrested in May.
“My daughter made cards for him,” said one parent who did not want her
name used because the police said her daughter might have been a victim.
“We prayed for him every single night at dinner. It was just lying to
us and a complete cover-up.”
A federal grand jury last Tuesday charged Father Ratigan with 13 counts of possessing, producing and attempting to produce child pornography.
It accused him of taking lewd pictures of the genitalia of five girls
ages 2 to 12, sometimes while they slept.
If convicted, he would face a
minimum of 15 years in prison.