An investigation by Polish television TVN24broadcast on Monday 6 March, he claims that when Karol Wojtyla was bishop and cardinal of Krakow and therefore before being elected pope, he was aware of the cases of pedophilia in the Polish Church. He allegedly gave cover to priests accused of committing child abuse by moving them to other parishes far from Krakow.
The investigation began two and a half years ago and is entitled “Franciscan 3” like the street and street number of the seat of the Curia in Krakow where Karol Wojtyla lived as a student of the seminary and where he was ordained a priest in 1946. From there on he became bishop, archbishop, cardinal and finally pope. The author of the report is investigative journalist Marcin Gutowski.
Gutowski says that Wojtyla, as early as the 1960s, was not only aware of the abuses committed by priests in his diocese, but that he intervened directly by moving some of the accused priests from one parish to another: a very common practice within the Church. For example, one of these priests was sent by the future pope to Austria. Wojtyla also wrote a letter of recommendation for him to the then Cardinal of Vienna Franz König, without informing him of the accusations against the priest. An anonymous witness then confirmed to Gutowski that he had personally reported to Cardinal Wojtyla the acts of pedophilia that he had suffered from a priest in 1973: «First Wojtyla wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a bluff. He asked me not to report it anywhere, he said he would take care of it », explained the man.
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Gutowski explained that he had met some victims of pedophile priests in the diocese of Krakow, their families and former employees of the diocese itself, finding confirmation of a general attitude of silence. In his investigation, the journalist also cites a series of documents from the former Communist secret police (SB, Security Service) and some Church documents that he managed to get out of Poland. The diocese of Krakow instead denied him access to its archives. In past years, the Polish Church had already refused to provide documents to the judiciary or to the public inquiry commission that is investigating cases of abuse in the Church. “I hope this report puts an end to the discussion. It will no longer be possible to say that Karol Wojtyla did not know, and long before he became pope,” said Gutowski.
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“What has been discovered is revolutionary because it shows what many people have suspected for years and that is that John Paul II, even before becoming pope, knew that this problem existed”, commented in turn the American priest Thomas Doyle, a specialist in canon law e author of one of the first reports of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the United States, which was filed in the spring of 1985 and which was itself covered up. “Here we have the evidence,” Doyle said. This evidence would contradict a central argument of those who have defended Wojtyla up to now, namely that when he was pope he was unaware of the real extent of the phenomenon of child abuse in the Church, believing that it was a problem confined to the United States.
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In Poland, a book is being released with accusations similar to those contained in Gutowski’s report, born from an investigation by the Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek and entitled “Maxima Culpa. John Paul II knew”.
Poland is one of the most Catholic countries in Europe, over 40 percent of the population attend mass every Sunday. Catholicism has played a decisive role in shaping the country’s national identity. Pope John Paul II, the first Polish pope, is revered both as a moral authority and for his opposition to communism. In 2014 he was canonized, i.e. made a saint, by the current Pope Francis.
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