He (Bishop Robert Finn, convicted in 2012 of failing to inform police about a priest with child pornography on his computer) is still the bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese, in good standing with the Catholic Church.

“That, say former priests and victims’ advocates, represents the state of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church today. More than three decades after the initial reports of abuse began to emerge, critics say that many bishops, who have authority over their areas of responsibility, known as dioceses or eparchies, seem more committed to protecting the church than preventing abuse …

“It’s difficult to estimate the full scope of the abuse crisis. While allegations first surfaced in the U.S., the problem has become a global one, with widespread reports of abuse emerging in Ireland, Spain, Germany, Italy, Latin America and elsewhere.

“In the U.S. alone, 16,787 people have come forward to say that they were abused by priests as children between 1950 and 2012, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the organization for the Catholic hierarchy in the country. Those figures are incomplete. The data excludes, for unclear reasons, any people who came forward in in 2003.  The conference also counts only allegations it determined were ‘not implausible’ or ‘credible.’”

By Sarah Childress, PBS FRONTLINE — Click here to read the rest of this article.