Catholic Replies
Q. I know that in this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we are supposed to practice more fervently the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Most of these are fairly easy to understand, but I wonder about the one that says we are to “admonish the sinner.” How can one do that without judging another person, which we’re not supposed to do? — F.A., Massachusetts.
A. This is perhaps the most difficult Spiritual Work of Mercy to carry out, for no one likes to be told that their words and actions may be harmful to themselves, to their families and friends, and to the society around them (consider what happened to the prophets in the Bible). We live in a world where the greatest “sin” is being intolerant of the behavior of others or, worse, being “judgmental.”
Those who have little knowledge of the teachings of Jesus do know one thing Jesus said, namely, “Judge not lest you be judged.” Did Jesus really mean that one should never speak out against sin and evil? Of course not. He was not talking about judging actions, but rather the motives of those committing the actions since only God knows what is in the human heart.
How do we know this? Because Jesus said in chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel that if a person sins, we should speak to him about his sin. If he or she won’t listen, then we are to get one or two others to speak to them. If this doesn’t work, we are to refer them to the Church. And if they still won’t listen, Jesus said that we should treat them as outcasts. Jesus gave us a moral code (the Commandments) to help us get to Heaven, so He would hardly be happy with persons who are violating that code and jeopardizing their chance of reaching Heaven.
At the risk of a punch in the nose or the loss of a friendship, we must alert those who are living in immoral sexual relationships, or supporting abortion or euthanasia, or watching pornography, or drinking too much, or deliberately staying away from weekly Mass, that these actions separate them from God and put their eternal salvation in jeopardy. St. Paul told us to speak the truth in love, and what greater act of love can we demonstrate than to steer someone off the road to Hell?
Q. I know The Wanderer carried articles about Bishop Robert Finn and the problems he was having in Kansas City. I read and dismissed them because it did not affect me at that time. Bishop Finn now lives in Lincoln, Neb., and a newspaper described him as a “disgraced bishop.”
Then, of course, there is a letter to the editor from SNAP [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests] out of St Louis, condemning our bishop, James Conley, for allowing him to come here. Can you enlighten me as to what the facts are? I know after reading the information in The Wanderer that I felt he was railroaded. I would like to defend him now. — M.F., via e-mail.
A. A Missouri native and a member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, Bishop Robert Finn was installed in 2005 as the bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City/St. Joseph, Mo.
He faced the difficult task of changing a diocesan culture that had promoted lay leadership instead of recruiting men to the priesthood. He fired both the chancellor and vice chancellor of the diocese, eliminated its lay formation program, and ordered the diocesan newspaper to stop carrying the column of Fr. Richard McBrien, who had gotten into trouble with the U.S. Bishops Committee on Doctrine because of his theological opinions that contradicted Catholic teaching.
Bishop Finn also questioned whether the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper headquartered in his diocese, should call itself “Catholic” when it had dissented so often and so vigorously from Catholic teaching. That he was right about this became more evident recently when the NCR selected as “persons of the year” a same-sex couple who attempted to get married.
In December 2010, Bishop Finn’s vicar general, Msgr. Robert Murphy, informed him that photos of young children’s crotches and buttocks had been found on the computer of a Fr. Shawn Ratigan. None of the photos depicted any sexual activity and a police captain and a diocesan attorney who reviewed the pictures advised that they did not constitute pornography. The case was not turned over to the diocesan Independent Review Board because there was no allegation of child abuse.
This was later confirmed in a report by former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves, who conducted an investigation of the timeline of events and decisions taken by the Independent Review Board.
A day after the photos surfaced, Fr. Ratigan unsuccessfully attempted suicide and, some weeks after his recovery, he was sent to Pennsylvania for psychiatric evaluation. Upon his return, Bishop Finn sent Ratigan to a house for elderly clergy and ordered him to have no contact with children. When Ratigan violated that order (he was caught trying to take pictures under a table of a young girl whose family had invited him to dinner), Msgr. Murphy turned the matter over to the police (Bishop Finn was out of town at the time), who found more disturbing photos on Ratigan’s laptop.
The priest was arrested in May 2011 and subsequently found guilty of producing and possessing child pornography. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2013, but was not charged with molesting or sexually abusing children.
After an investigation headed by Jackson County Attorney Jean Peters Baker, Bishop Finn was indicted in October 2011 for failing to report sexual misconduct by a diocesan priest and, after a one-day bench trial, was found guilty in September 2012 on one misdemeanor count. He was sentenced to two years’ probation, which was suspended.
After a Vatican investigation conducted by Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa, Bishop Finn stepped down from his post on April 21, 2015.
Following a review of the facts of the case shortly after the indictment was handed down, Michael Quinlan, JD, who has practiced law in the St. Louis area for more than 25 years, concluded that while Bishop Finn may have acted too slowly in dealing with Fr. Ratigan, he did not deserve to be so aggressively prosecuted nor, we might add, does he deserve the epithet “disgraced bishop.”
Here is Quinlan’s conclusion after his review of the case:
“Catholics and non-Catholics alike are rightfully outraged at the laxity of bishops who for many years effectively sheltered child predators and thereby endangered children. Yet for all the errors in this handling of the Fr. Ratigan case, based on the facts found in the Graves Report, it cannot fairly be said that Bishop Finn deliberately sheltered a known predator or knowingly endangered children.
“On the contrary, Bishop Finn isolated and restricted Fr. Ratigan, and the diocese turned him in to police when he defied those restrictions. The three months between his release from the hospital and when the diocese turned him in is not remotely comparable to the years and decades of cover-up and enabling that came to light in 2002. We may justifiably condemn the sluggish and inept handling of the Fr. Ratigan case by diocesan officials and lawyers. However, on the issue of whether Bishop Finn’s conduct was criminal, we must follow the dictates of the law. He simply did not violate the law.
“Ours is a government of laws and not men. In criminal prosecutions especially, rank or stature cannot trump the law either for leniency or vengeance. For a prosecutor to twist the law in a case of even justifiable outrage undermines the integrity of our system and threatens us all. With no known victim, neither Bishop Finn nor anyone else at the diocese broke the law by failing to notify DFS [Department of Family Services] and, therefore, the indictment cannot stand.”
Q. The recent death of Jackie Collins, who became famous for her sexually explicit novels, made me wonder about her eternal destiny. Do you have any thoughts? — M.G., Alabama.
A. Mrs. Collins is reported to have said that she believed in an afterlife, but that she had no regrets about her life, saying that “I did it my way.” The only way to get to Heaven, of course, is to do it God’s way.
Without knowing the state of her soul at the time of her death, we recall the recent distinction made by Pope Francis between sinners who feel shame for their sins and repent and what he called the “corrupt” person, who does not repent and continues to sin. He said that the corrupt are “more than sinners” because they allow their hearts to become “so hardened that it is impossible to hear the voice of the Lord” or to repent.
All we can do is to pray for the soul of Mrs. Collins in the hope that she did repent before she died.
