Catholic Bishop Charged — Finally

[cleanhippie]

For the first time ever in the U.S., a Catholic church official has been criminally charged for failing to report suspected child molestation by a priest in his charge to the police. The New York Times reports:

A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church’s sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised.

The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/10/19/catholic-bishop-charged-finally/

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Well, at least the secular justice system will deal with this, since Catholics (read: the church) seem to not want to.

[David Sky]

1. Why do I somehow suspect this fellow will be magically summoned to Rome

to meet with the Pope, and then be transferred to some country where we don't have extradition treaties?

[Goblinmonger]

3. Or promoted a la Cardinal Law. n/t

[darkstar3]

2. Five of the saddest words I've read in a long time:

"For the first time ever"

[trotsky]

4. Unbelievable, isn't it?

Imagine any other institution being able to pull off that trick for so long, protecting its own from prosecution over one of the most heinous sexual crimes there is.