# Catholic Bishop Charged With Failure to Report Child Porn **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692 "2011-10-14T23:48:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/21 "2011-10-16T13:11:02Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I do not understand why the Church’s guidelines or internal policies should have any bearing whatsoever on whether this guy is charged with a crime. Or are you merely saying something about your own comfort level? Are you suggesting that you would have more problems with a prosecution if Church guidelines were somehow different? Because they point to either one of two things: - the organization has rules that amount to willful ignorance of criminality - a particular individual knew or should have known that another individual was involved in criminal conduct, and their own actions helped to further that conduct or at least to conceal it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/22 "2011-10-16T13:28:24Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I do not understand why the Church’s guidelines or internal policies should have any bearing whatsoever on whether this guy is charged with a crime. Or are you merely saying something about your own comfort level? Are you suggesting that you would have more problems with a prosecution if Church guidelines were somehow different? The article does not identify one single criminal act by the bishop. The only reason he is being charged is that the rules of the Catholic Church place bishops in charge of their diocese. Let’s take your suggestion. The Church’s guidelines and internal policies have no bearing whatsoever. Explain the basis now for charging Bishop Finn with anything, without reference to any Catholic guidelines or policies, please. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/23 "2011-10-16T14:50:30Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The article does not identify one single criminal act by the bishop. The only reason he is being charged is that the rules of the Catholic Church place bishops in charge of their diocese. > > Let’s take your suggestion. The Church’s guidelines and internal policies have no bearing whatsoever. > > Explain the basis now for charging Bishop Finn with anything, without reference to any Catholic guidelines or policies, please. Then he shouldn’t be charged. I would take this situation as analogous to a school where by law the staff has an affirmative duty to report suspected abuse. If a teacher fails to report, the teacher should be charged. If the teacher reports it to the principal who then fails to report it, they should probably both be charged, depending on how “report” is defined in the law. I can only suspect we’re not seeing the whole story. Perhaps the vicar did what he did after instructions from the bishop. I see the story also says the “diocese” has been charged with a crime, which is a rather novel concept for me. Perhaps state law has some element that confers criminal liability on the CEO in cases where an institution is charged with a crime. In either case, I don’t think it’s appropriate that a private institution’s internal policies have any bearing on how the state defines a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/24 "2011-10-16T15:22:58Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I see the story also says the “diocese” has been charged with a crime, which is a rather novel concept for me. Perhaps state law has some element that confers criminal liability on the CEO in cases where an institution is charged with a crime. And wouldn’t it be the organization’s internal policies that define who the CEO is, especially when there’s no such title? If I have a research company that identifies my job title as “Top Dog,” can I escape the reach of that law? Or can state law look to my policies and rules to determine what my job function is and if it matches the “CEO” concept? ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/25 "2011-10-16T17:59:27Z")
Even if a child had been baptised nude (which I have never seen - that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen somewhere) I can’t imagine either the person holding her allowing her to flail around enough that her legs were widely spread or someone in attendance at a baptism being ready with a camera to take a picture of said spread legs. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/26 "2011-10-16T19:48:48Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The article does not identify one single criminal act by the bishop. The only reason he is being charged is that the rules of the Catholic Church place bishops in charge of their diocese. > > Let’s take your suggestion. The Church’s guidelines and internal policies have no bearing whatsoever. > > Explain the basis now for charging Bishop Finn with anything, without reference to any Catholic guidelines or policies, please. I’m no lawyer, so my understanding of this may be flawed, but the story says: > [@](#): > > Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and the diocese were required under state law to report the discovery to police because the images gave them reason to believe a child had been abused. So Bishop Finn was required by law to report the discovery simply because of his knowledge of it? Or perhaps because he was the boss? If a bishop is head of an entity, the diocese, which runs schools and hospitals and who knows what, is his responsibility as head of that organization due to “Catholic guidelines or policies,” or just to the fact that he’s somehow the head of an entity, without regard to the religious nature of that entity, or its internal policies? I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/27 "2011-10-16T20:00:17Z")
The fact that he’s the head of the entity _is_ a matter of the entity’s internal policies. ---
**Author:** ![CRich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CRich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CRich)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692/28 "2011-10-18T20:38:06Z")
It’s a bit more complicated than that. There were concerns about this particular priest for quite some time, resulting in a visit to the Chancery by the school principal and the hand-delivering of this letter: [http://media2.nbcactionnews.com/pdf/StPatrickSchoolLetter.pdf](http://media2.nbcactionnews.com/pdf/StPatrickSchoolLetter.pdf) The photos in question were not of children being baptized. They were parishioners’ children, school children. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-bishop-charged-with-failure-to-report-child-porn/599692.md?page=1)