Polish archbishop refers child abuse negligence case to Vatican
on
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Joanna Plucinska
3-4 minutes
The Polish Catholic Church’s most senior archbishop
notified the Vatican on Saturday of a Polish bishop accused of shielding
priests known to have sexually abused children.
FILE
PHOTO: Archbishop Wojciech Polak speaks with media representatives
after extraordinary sitting of Polish bishops, to discuss steps the
Catholic Church in Poland should take to tackle the problem of
paedophilia, at the Polish Episcopate headquarters in Warsaw, Poland May
22, 2019. Agencja Gazeta/Slawomir Kaminski/via REUTERS/File Photo
The
referral, unprecedented in the deeply religious country, will test
procedures introduced by the Vatican last year to hold to account
bishops accused of turning a blind eye to child sex abuse. The Vatican
is now expected to assign an investigator to the case.
“I ask
priests, nuns, parents and educators to not be led by the false logic of
shielding the Church, effectively hiding sexual abusers,” Poland’s
Primate Wojciech Polak said in a statement published on Saturday.
“There is no place among the clergy to sexually abuse minors. We do not allow for the hiding of these crimes.”
The
case came to prominence after a film by brothers Tomasz and Marek
Sekielski, released on Saturday, showed how bishop Edward Janiak, based
in the city of Kalisz, failed to take action against priests who were
known to have abused children.
Janiak, who is still practicing,
has not commented directly on the allegations. He did not respond to a
request for comment by Reuters.
In Janiak’s defence, the Kalisz
curia said the parents of one of the alleged victims portrayed in the
film did not follow the right procedure.
“The recording in the
film doesn’t show the whole conversation. It doesn’t show the part where
we say that the parents should’ve expressed their concerns to the
prosecutor immediately,” it said in a statement.
The Sekielski
brothers released another film last year that suggested that known
paedophiles were deliberately shifted between parishes. The film has
over 23 million views on YouTube.
Victims of sexual abuse have long called for measures to make it easier to report alleged cover-ups by the Church.
Poland’s
Catholic Church, an institution with close ties to the ruling
nationalist Law and Justice party, has faced accusations in the past of
shielding priests who abuse children.
A Church official told Reuters that Janiak’s referral was partly the result of the Vatican’s new procedure.
“I
believe that this is just a facade,” said Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska, a
co-author of a map marking child sexual abuse by priests around Poland.
“For the last year, the Catholic Episcopate has known that there
are bishops who covered up paedophilia cases, and yet none of them have
been dismissed.”
Poland faces tension between liberals who feel
the Church wields too much power and conservatives who see the Catholic
faith as a key element of national identity that must be protected.
Comments
Post a Comment