Porno priest punished for his sins
Yael T. AbouhalkahThe Rev. Shawn Ratigan has pleaded guilty to charges related to child pornography, staining the reputation of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.
Ratigan - a sick older man taking pictures of young children - should be put away for life as punishment for those sins.
But the real test for local Catholics comes in the next month.
After all, Ratigan was just one person going astray, admittedly one of the few that have been identified by name among Catholic priests involved in the abuse of children.
With Ratigan’s guilty pleas, though, attention will turn to the court cases involving Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese.
The essential questions: How much did they know about what Ratigan was doing and how quickly did they try to stop his activities?
Many Catholics have called on Finn to resign, while many others have said he should stay on.
The courts cases, it can be hoped, will provide definitive answers on whether Finn was guilty in his own way of enabling Ratigan’s behavior to continue and to harm innocent children.
Rachel Elaine Hines
9 months, 3 weeks agoFinn should have resigned long ago. In fact, every bishop in every diocese that has been affected by these priests should be bounced out on their rears.
Judy Block-Jones
9 months, 3 weeks agoThankfully for the innocent children and their families, this predator priest will most likely be kept far away from kids for the rest of his life. Hopefully any others, who may have knowledge or may have been harmed by Shawn Ratigan, will have the courage to speak up and report it to police.
When victims and whistleblowers stay silent, nothing changes. But when they find the courage to take action, there’s at least a chance for prevention, healing and justice especially when they seek independent sources of support and avoid contacting Catholic officials.
Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, USA, 636-433-2511 snapjudy@gmail.com “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests” and all clergy.
Mike Ference
9 months, 2 weeks agoI look for Shawn Ratigan to be the next Joe Valacchi. He could really do a job on exposing catholic church hierarchy.
Mike Ference
Suzanne Conaway
9 months, 2 weeks agoRatigan, Sandusky and many other sexual predators would be behind bars a lot earlier if people would follow one simple rule: if it’s a crime, go to the police.
I read stories of girls being raped on campus, reporting it to the campus authorities and, especially if the rapist is an athlete, the whole incident gets swept under the rug.
I’ve been reading about the sexual misconduct in the military. Now, I don’t know military rules. Perhaps victims have to report to senior officers. But if not, they should go to the police.
Churches, colleges and other institutions that want to preserve their reputations are not likely to want to snitch on their own.
If it’s a crime, go straight to the police. Problem solved.
Mike Ference
9 months, 2 weeks agoSuzanne, I know you mean well, but going to the police is not always the answer. Stephen Zappala Jr. is the District Attorney for Allegheny County and he also is a board member of on the US Bishop’s Conference for handling clergy sex abuse crimes. His father a former PA Supreme Court Chief Justice sits on the review board for clergy abuse crimes in the Pittsburgh Diocese. Factor in that PA elected officials are bought and sold like stolen merchandise at an outdoor flea market, so going to the police is not always the answer.
Suzanne Conaway
9 months, 2 weeks agoMike,
That’s really too bad about the possibility of a cover-up in Allegheny County. I would hope that Zappala would recuse himself from any clergy sex abuse issues. However, realistically, that’s probably not happening.
However, for the most part (and I don’t know the rules for military), I think the advise to skip the institutional middlefolk and go straight to the police is still the best issue.
Since sex abuse is a crime, sex abuse of any kind should not be handled by anyone but the police.
Ken Whisler
Parkville
9 months, 2 weeks agoCome on, Yael, you are the journalist, so you are the one that needs a better command of the language. You asked two questions, not one. I will split them up into two as you should have done, and then I will answer them for you as two questions.
1st question: “How much did they know about what Ratigan was doing?”
Answer: Very little, and not near as much as what people on the parish levels knew for years before one word of it reached the diocese and much later, the bishop. A very simple timeline of events proves this. There were at least six people that qualify under Missouri law as “mandated reporters” who had reasonably strong suspicions of Ratigan’s activities in the years prior to the diocese even hearing one word of it.
2nd question: “How quickly did they try to stop his activities?”
Answer: IMMEDIATELY! They did not “try”, they “did”. Once again, a simple timeline of events proves this. Everything that the bishop did in the span of time between December of 2010 and May of 2011 was based on 1) Ratigan’s health status after his suicide attempt, and 2) information given to his eminence by people that he trusted to do their jobs.
To the first point, Ratigan was not expected to recover. When Ratigan did recover, he was first sent for psychological evaluation (that is an immediate action). Bishop Finn then pulled Ratigan out of St. Patricks and re-assigned him to Sisters of St. Francis, with strict orders to stay away from children, cameras, and computers.
All of this time the bishop was under the impression that the authorities had already been called and that they had declined to investigate! (See footnote 154 on pages 107 and 108 of the Graves report.) Bishop Finn knew at this time that Ratigan can not be allowed around kids, and based on the information that was given to him by people that he trusted, the bishop was under the impression that no other authority other than his own was going to take decisive action in removing Ratigan. As soon as it became apparent that certain people were not doing their jobs, immediate action was taken and changes were made. You guys call it “passing the buck”. I call it “leadership”.
Fact: all of the breakdowns that lead to this mess started on the parish level, and that is exactly where the breakdowns need to be fixed.
Ken Whisler
Parkville
9 months, 2 weeks agoI see someone changed the “question” to plural. Ah, the advantages of access to the admin control panel……..
Neil Allen
9 months, 2 weeks agoKen Whisler is lying, as Catholics always do about their child rapists and those who hide them.
According to the church’s own paid report by Todd Graves, Finn got a memo by a school principal about Ratigan a YEAR before he went to the police.
Then, when Finn found out about Ratigan’s computer full of child porn, Finn
had a msgr mislead an off duty policeman about it, then claimed he “went to the police”
sent Ratigan on the Classic Catholic pedophile priest penance vacation
allowed Ratigan around children after he returned
waited a full year after getting the school memo before alerting the police
What we don’t know is:
how many children Ratigan raped
how many other pedophiles Bishop FInn is hiding (only the Catholics think there is just one)
Ken Whisler’s version of IMMEDIATELY is one year where a child predator was on the prowl whilc being protected by his Bishop. Let’s put Finn in jail, and let him out after one year, or as Whisler would lie, IMMEDIATELY!
Ken Whisler
Parkville
9 months, 2 weeks agoNeil:
1) Finn never saw the memo. Msgr. Murphy gave the memo back to the principal. There was NO copy of the memo on hand when the Msgr. summarized it to the bishop. Point: at this time, the principal is a mandated reporter under Missouri law.
2) The msgr. acted on his own when contacting the police officer. The bishop at this time did not even know about the computer. Point: at this time, the police officer is a mandated reporter and required by his SOP to conduct an investigation.
3) Everything that the bishop did when determining what to do with Ratigan was based on information given to him by his 2nd in command! The bishop was informed that authorities had declined to investigate (which they had) and that Ratigan was solely the bishop’s problem to deal with.
4) Ratigan and Ratigan alone allowed Ratigan around children, in direct defiance of strict orders given to him by the bishop.
5) If you have hard proof, bring it! Don’t you dare carelessly lob out false allegations without hard proof. That’s called “false witness” and that is every bit as evil as if the abuse really happened!
Do your homework before calling anyone a liar.