Polish Priest Testifies for First Time in Clergy Sex Abuse Trial

By Jonathan Luxmoore
U.S. Catholic
January 11, 2012

http://www.uscatholic.org/news/2012/01/polish-priest-testifies-first-time-clergy-sex-abuse-trial

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- A Polish priest testified that a man reported to him that he was sexually abused by the former rector of a parish in Kolobrzeg, Poland.

The testimony Jan. 6 from the unnamed priest is believed to be the first by one cleric against another accused of sexual abuse in Poland. The trial comes amid growing complaints about the church's lack of response to abuse allegations against clergy.

The trial was scheduled to continue Jan. 12.

"The victim told me about his trauma," the priest told the Regional Court in Koszalin in the trial of Father Zbigniew Ryckiewicz, former pastor of St. Wojciech Parish in Kolobrzeg, who is charged with abusing two juvenile male altar servers from 1998 to 2001.

"I wanted to keep this person for God and the church, so I gave spiritual and material help to him and family, keeping his spirits up as a therapist," the priest from Opole said.

Judge Slawomir Przykucki, the court spokesman, declined for legal reasons Jan. 11 to name the priest, whose testimony was reported by Poland's mass-circulation Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

The length of the trial would depend on how many additional witnesses and experts were called to the witness stand, he said.

However, a church lawyer questioned the propriety of the case and accused the main victim, now 26, of "attempting to profit from his injuries."

"The first we heard was when this young man demanded damages from our diocese, and threatened to cause a scandal if we didn't pay him," Krzysztof Wyrwa, attorney for the Koszalin-Kolobrzeg Diocese, told Catholic News Service Jan. 10.

"We saw this as an attempt at wrongful profit and told him he should go to the police if someone had committed a crime against him," Wyrwa said. "This is what he did. But why didn't he do it much earlier when the alleged offenses took place?"

Leading Catholics, as well as representatives of Poland's Children's Rights office, have urged the church to adopt clear procedures for handling abuse claims in line with Vatican guidelines.

In a special issue published in the fall, Wiez Monthly, a Catholic journal, said the Polish church had no "information policy" or "norms of conduct" and lacked psychological checks for clergy and "transparent norms" for vetting employees.

The publication also cited a "lack of church-state cooperation" on abuse issues, and said church involvement with psychologists, psychiatrists and sexual behavior experts "left much to be desired."

Separately, Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, president of the Polish bishops' conference, said he favored a "policy of zero tolerance" and believed sexual offenses by priests should be "openly judged, with demands for reparations and damages."

Quoted in "Report on the State of the Faith in Poland," a book released in November, the archbishop also said the church should "show respect for the sinner" and explained that the media had failed to acknowledge that clergy were affected by a "contemporary pan-sexual culture," which had "promoted homosexuality and other sexual disorders."

Father Ryckiewicz, who was suspended from ministry in 2008 for "violating celibacy" with a married man in his parish, was arrested and charged with child abuse in May while living in Silesia.

The second young victim, who was abused 15 times as an adolescent, according to charges filed against Father Ryckiewicz, told the Glos Koszalinski daily that his complaints had been ignored by officials at the school he attended. He said he later became a seminarian "to escape the nightmare of guilt and indignity," the newspaper reported.

Although he was advised to obtain therapy, the second victim said, the Koszalin-Kolobrzeg Diocese accused him of "swindling" when he requested help with the costs.

Wyrwa, the diocese's attorney, said the victim's claim was rejected because neither Bishop Edward Dajczak of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg nor the diocese had a legal obligation to help abuse victims.

"The media tries to make a sensation out of all such cases and use them against the church," the lawyer said. "But the church has no collective responsibility under Polish law, especially when someone demands money from us."

At least 40 Polish priests have been convicted of abuse-related charges in the past decade. Most received suspended jail terms, although victims' advocates have discovered that most continue serving in parishes and at times working with children.