My former bishop gets reported to Pope Francis. The canonical appeal is facilitated by Father James Connell, priest of the Milwaukee archdiocese and canon lawyer. Over 100,000 online signatures. (I wasn’t one of them.)
Will anything come of this?
Some commentators say the Roman way is to let a bishop stew in his juices, twist in the wind–stuff like that, for his misdeeds.
If Rome doesn’t move Bishop Finn, the only way to make the next fourteen years bearable in northwestern Missouri would be for the man to try to outdo Pope Francis, and start generating leadership by inspiring example. Not edict.
Most of my friendly and professional connections in Kansas City have faded over the past five-and-a-half years. I don’t hear anything from the grass roots there, nor from people in ministry. I’m sure things have settled into an embattled stasis: some Catholics drifting away, the bishop’s supporters split between ideologues and the morally outraged, and others continuing their Catholic lives with the bishop largely irrelevant one way or another.
The way it should be?
Catholic Sensibility 