Strange Sort of Immunity

Bishop Robert Finn

 The subject of how child abuse in the Catholic Church is dealt with was brought up briefly in class the other day, and so when I noticed an article regarding it on the front page of the New York Times, I was immediately interested.

The article concerns the recent indictment of a bishop, Robert Finn, and his diocese over failing to report abuse in Kansas City, Missouri. Bishop Finn acknowledged that he knew of pornographic photographs taken of a young girl by a priest in December but did not turn them over to police until May. While he waited to turn over the photographs, the priest was allowed to continue attending church events with children, spend weekends at the homes of parish families and even took photographs of another girl.

This marks the first time the leader of an American diocese has been charged over the behavior of a priest he supervised.

Although American bishops pledged to report cases of abuse to authorities a decade ago, this promise is obviously not being kept. Bishop Finn himself had to make such a promise three years ago as part of a settlement with abuse victims. This is rather concerning, to say the least.

What is rather confusing is that no other bishop has been charged over mishandling cases of sexual abuse, despite the fact that I'm sure this has happened many times before. In fact, Michael Hunter, the president of an organizations for victims of abuse by priests,  said "We’re very pleased with the prosecuting attorney here to have the guts to do it." The guts to do what? Charge someone over the negligent failure to report child abuse to authorities?

Clearly, hesitation to charge church officials in these cases exists, but I don't understand why. What strange sort of immunity do bishops have that law enforcement can be considered courageous for charging them with crimes related to one of the most hated crimes in our society, pedophilia?