WARSAW: When he was an archbishop in his native Poland, Saint John Paul II reportedly knew about child sex abuse by clergy under his care and tried to cover it up.
The future pope, then known as Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, was accused of abusing children, and three priests – two of whom were deported to Austria, according to a report by a Polish channel. In the 1970s most were transferred to parishes or sent to a monastery. TVN24 which aired late Monday night.
According to TVN24, its two-and-a-half-year investigation found that two priests, Eugeniusz Sargent and Józef Lorank, eventually served short prison sentences for abuse. Wojtyla was Archbishop of Kraków from 1964 to 1978 before becoming Pope John Paul II. He died in 2005, and after a hurried process, was declared a saint in 2014.
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TVN24 used documents from Poland's secret security services during the communist era, which worked to discredit the Catholic Church and were its informants. The records are kept at the National Institute of Remembrance of the State Archives.
Journalist Marcin Gutowski also talked to several survivors and one man claimed he told Wojtyla about his abuse of Sgt. No priest was excommunicated.
Additionally, the TV station cited a letter it claimed Wojtyla had written to Franz Koenig, Archbishop of Vienna at the time, recommending a priest to take care of him. Boleslaw Sadus had been appointed a parish priest in Austria, but Wojtyla did not mention this in the letter.
According to TVN24's investigation, Wojtyla knew about the abuse of priests in his archdiocese and actively tried to cover it up.
A journalist who has written about instances of abuse by priests in the Diocese of Kraków was featured in the program and made the case that Wojtyla had acted in accordance with the policies of the Catholic Church at the time.
Dominican friar Pawe Guyski said on TVN24 on Tuesday that the discoveries would gradually "disintegrate the image of John Paul II that we have been used to." Some people may not be ready to deal with the new information, he said.
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Gysky emphasized that there was "no semblance of equality" between being a saint and having committed no mistakes at all, let alone crimes.
Wojtyla's actions needed to be "impartially assessed".
According to a release issued Tuesday by Polish church officials in charge of minor security. Representatives stressed that the church was ready to listen to and support abuse survivors.
The channel's investigation has sparked a furious debate in Poland, with some observers accusing it of being a left-wing plot to discredit John Paul II, while others calling for the Catholic Church to come clean. The late pope's motto, "Don't be afraid," was added to a photo of John Paul II to a crowd in Poland by Catholic Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki without further explanation.
Krzysztof Madel, a Polish Jesuit priest, said on Twitter that victims should be the center of attention because they need to hear the truth. Radosław Brzozka, a representative of the Ministry of Education, claimed on Twitter that those seeking to erase Catholicism from Poland's national identity were attacking the reputation of Pope John Paul II.
Not only Pope John Paul II is being criticized for his interactions with predatory clergy. His handling of the four cases while bishop of Munich was criticized by an independent report commissioned by his immediate successor, Benedict XVI, who took a much tougher approach and removed hundreds of offending priests.
As a bishop and later as pope, Pope Francis has also been accused of failing to respond to cases of clergy abuse in his native Argentina and Chile. Commentators said the hierarchy of the Catholic Church prioritized protecting the reputation of the institution over the needs of the victims.
Wojtyla's election as Pope in 1978 prompted Poland's predominantly Catholic population to openly criticize and eventually call for the country's communist system to be overthrown.
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Poland's Catholic Church has historically been a major player in the country's public life. The church's reputation has been damaged by revelations of its close ties to pedophilic priests and the current right-wing administration.
