Report Details Kansas City-Area Priest Sex Abuse Spending

The Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese spent more than $1 million over a four-month stretch last year to deal with allegations of sexual abuse by priests, according to a new report containing the most detailed figures the diocese has provided on the cost of such cases.

The Kansas City Star reported that a diocese insurance program incurred $631,553 in costs relating to clergy sexual abuse from July through October. The sum includes money to counsel victims and defend the diocese, its employees and priests who are named in 24 pending lawsuits involving sexual abuse allegations from the 1960 through 1980s.

Another $427,707 in spending is tied to an independent investigation led by former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves at the request of the diocese.

The report, which was published in the diocese’s newspaper and on its website, said the Rev. Shawn Ratigan’s defense isn’t being bankrolled with money from diocesan funds. Ratigan has pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges stemming from claims that he took hundreds of pornographic pictures of children. After the images were found on Ratigan’s computer, the diocese waited five months to turn copies of them over to police.

The case has sparked multiple lawsuits and led to an indictment against Bishop Robert Finn and the diocese on misdemeanor charges of failing to report suspicions of child sexual abuse.

Finn said in a letter that the document is an overview of how the diocese has fulfilled the terms of clergy sex abuse prevention plan that that U.S. bishops approved 10 years ago.

“We have taken many important steps to prevent abuse from happening in diocesan, parish or school settings,” Finn wrote, adding that the work would never be completed. “Together – as bishop, clergy, religious, staff, volunteers and families – we must continue to do all within our power.”

According to the report, the earliest allegation of sexual abuse of a minor occurred in 1948 and was reported 60 years later. The diocese to date has received 108 reports of sexual abuse, the report says.

A total of 23 diocesan priests have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors, seven of whom were accused after they died. Of the remaining 16, the report says, one has been dismissed from the priesthood; four are in the process of being dismissed from the priesthood; six retired and were later barred from ministry; two are on administrative leave; and three have died since being accused.

The report said the insurance program paid a total of $14.8 million on issues related to priest sex abuse allegations from July 1, 2002, through Oct. 31, 2011.

But Nicholas Cafardi, the former chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth, said money paid isn’t the proper way to measure the tragedy.

“The proper measure of the tragedy is in the lives that were ruined,” said Cafardi, now a law professor at Duquesne University.