Kansas City priest, prosecutor clash on 'political motivation' for criminal case against Bishop Finn

May 07, 2015

After a Missouri priest charged that the criminal case against Bishop Robert Finn had been motivated by politics and publicity, the prosecutor who won the case has shot back, saying that the priest’s complaint was founded on “misinformation.”

Father Gregory Lockwood drew the prosecutor’s ire by saying that Bishop Finn-- who resigned in April in the aftermath of his conviction on child-endangerment charges-- was a target because his strong defense of orthodoxy had made him unpopular. “If this had happened on another, more popular bishop’s watch,” Father Lockward argued, “the we have seen would not have occurred, because the motivation for the mob-scene that ensued was Bishop Finn’s fidelity to a classical concept of the Church, not the cover-up of any misconduct.”

Jean Peters Baker, who filed the criminal charges against Bishop Finn, responded sharply in a letter to Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who is now acting as administrator of the Kansas City (Missouri) diocese. “I run this office as a prosecutor, not a politician, and I have sought convictions for those who have harmed our community,” she said. She insisted that “no one is above the law,” and claimed that she had shown “the courage to stand up to those in power and hold dangerous criminals accountable for their behavior.”

Archbishop Naumann did not respond directly to the prosecutor’s letter. He has upheld the right of Father Lockwood and others who have defended Bishop Finn, but said that “it serves no good purpose at this point to rehash a story that has had so many tragic consequences.”

 

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Further information:

• KC priest criticizes prosecution of Bishop Robert Finn, and prosecutor fires back (Kansas City Star)