September 8, 2012

The beat goes on

When I read this, I wasn't surprised.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Calls for Bishop Robert Finn's resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal. 

(snip)

Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston [and was sent to prison for decades and was promoted to a cushy job at the Vatican for his efforts].
So, was Bishop Finn sent to the hoosegow for his transgressions? Of course not.
Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014
They never suffer real repercussions -- and the beat goes on.

(Much better version of this story at the Times this morning.)

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