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According to the APA, there are recent allegations in Poland that Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) did not properly deal with cases of church abuse before his time as pope or even covered up such acts. During his time as cardinal and archbishop of Kraków, Wojtyla knew about pedophilia cases, the private broadcaster TVN reported on Sunday, citing research by journalist Marcin Gutowski.
According to the journalist, Wojtyla is said to have transferred priests from his diocese, about whose actions he was aware, to other parishes in order to avoid scandals. One of the priests was sent to Austria by the future Pope. Cardinal Wojtyla wrote a letter of recommendation to the Archbishop of Vienna at the time, Cardinal Franz König, without informing him of the allegations against the priest.
No evidence of offense
The Viennese diocesan spokesman Michael Prüller confirmed to Kathpress on Monday that there had been no indication from Kraków of any abuse of the priest in question. “We investigated that when we received an inquiry from Poland at the beginning of January this year. In our files there is also no evidence of possible crimes during the time in Austria. The Independent Victim Protection Commission is also not aware of any accusations against him,” says Prüller . A Polish television team that did research a few weeks ago in the parish of the Archdiocese of Vienna where the priest worked apparently heard nothing negative about the former pastor from the population.
For his research, Marcin Gutowski spoke to victims of pedophile priests, their relatives and former employees of the Archdiocese. He also relied on documents from the former communist secret police SB and documents from the church. However, the Archdiocese of Kraków has denied him access to its archives, the journalist said.
Church keeps documents under lock and key
The Catholic Church in Poland has previously refused to release documents – even to the judiciary or to a public commission investigating abuse cases. A witness who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that he personally told Cardinal Wojtyla about a priest’s pedophilic actions in 1973. “Wojtyla first wanted to make sure it wasn’t a bluff,” the witness said. “He said he would look into it and asked not to report it anywhere.”
At the end of 2022, the Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek went public with the statement that he had found “rock-solid evidence” that Karol Wojtyla, as Archbishop of Kraków, had helped to cover up cases of abuse in the ranks of the church. Documents contain information on specific cases in which Wojtyla knowingly transferred abuse priests to other dioceses. Even convicted perpetrators were allowed to continue working in other dioceses. Overbeek referred to old secret service documents that he discovered during years of research in Polish archives.
The former lawyer (“postulator”) in the canonization process of John Paul II then defended the former pope against the accusation of covering up abuse. To accuse John Paul II of abetting or sweeping the sexual abuse of children under the rug is “completely absurd” and contradicts the facts, Slawomir Oder said in an interview with the Polish Catholic news agency KAI in December. The Pope at the time did not tolerate children being harmed.
Source: Nachrichten
