Vatican Arrests Ex-prelate on Sex Abuse Charges

By Michael Winter
USA Today
September 23, 2014

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/09/23/vatican-defrocked-archbishop-arrested-sex-abuse/16114579/

Archbishop Josef Wesolowski greeted congregants in Santo Dominigo in March 2013 when he was the papal nuncio for the Dominican Republic.

A defrocked Catholic archbishop accused of molesting boys in the Dominican Republic has been arrested and will be prosecuted for sexual abuse, the Vatican announced Tuesday.

Jozef Wesolowski, who served as archbishop in the Caribbean nation until being recalled in August 2013, will be under house arrest in Vatican City rather than be held in a small jail cell because of unspecified health issues, the Vatican said. He will be tried under the laws of the Vatican City State and, if convicted, could face time in an Italian prison.

In June, a church tribunal convicted the native of Poland of sex abuse and stripped him of his church powers and priestly duties. He is the first top papal representative to face the harshest sentence under church law, known as laicization.

The Vatican said it acted because of the "gravity of the accusations" and with the "will expressed by" Pope Francis that "such a grave and delicate case might be addressed without delay, with the just and necessary rigor, with the full assumption of responsibility by the institutions of the Holy See."

The Vatican has denied covering up for Wesolowski by recalling him to Rome last year.