Prosecutors have charged a Roman Catholic priest suspected of sex offences against children in Poland and in the Dominican Republic.
The 36-year-old Polish priest, who was arrested on Monday (February 17), is identified only as Wojciech G for legal reasons. He faces up to 12 years behind bars if convicted.
Wojciech G has been accused of alleged sexual relations with minors under the age of 15 — two in Poland and two in the Dominican Republic where he served in the central city of Santiago, Dariusz Nowak, a spokesman for prosecutors in Warsaw, told reporters. The priest, who has flatly denied any wrongdoing, is also alleged to have possessed child pornography.
In an October 2013 interview with Polish media, Wojciech G suggested he had been set up by drug gangs in the Dominican Republic. Polish prosecutors began independent investigations in September into the allegations against him and also 65-year-old Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who served as a papal envoy in the Dominican Republic’s capital Santo Domingo. Authorities there also suspect Wesolowski of having sex with boys. Pope Francis suspended him from his duties as papal nuncio and summoned him to the Vatican in August last year.
Nowak said on Monday that “all documents from the Dominican Republic were transferred to the Vatican”, though Polish prosecutors continue to investigate the case.
Child sex abuse by priests in Poland remained a largely taboo subject until the influential Catholic Church was hit with a string of child sex allegations in 2013. In an unprecedented move, Polish church leaders apologised late last year over suspected paedophile priests but also stirred controversy by saying parents shared the blame for the abuse. After a public outcry, Poland’s top Catholic cleric Archbishop Jozef Michalik apologised in October for his remarks.
The church in Poland faced its first civil lawsuit for damages this month. The demand for 47,500 Euros (£39,100) was made by a 25-year-old man who was molested as a child. A Catholic priest was sentenced in 2012 to two years behind bars in the case, but his diocese refused to be held financially liable
