Bishop Finn resigns

Robert Finn has resigned as Bishop of Kansas City-St Joseph, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, writes Michael Sean Winters.

Last year, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast conducted an apostolic visitation of the diocese at the request of the Congregation for Bishops. Finn had a meeting with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of that congregation, on 14 April and then with the apostolic nuncio in the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, to work out details of the resignation. Finn, 62, had been embroiled in controversy since he took the reins of the diocese in 2005 and dismissed long-time staff members.

In 2011, his handling of a clergy sex-abuse case involving a priest who took pornographic photographs of children was criticised. Bishop Finn’s failure to report the case broke civil law and in 2012 he was convicted in a civil court of failing to report child abuse.