No Privileges for Bishop Wesolowski, Arrested on Charges of Child Abuse

By Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
September 25, 2014

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francisco-francis-wesolowski-36513/

The Pope

“In Argentina we call those who receive preferential treatment “spoilt children”, but “there will be no preferential treatment when it comes to child abuse,” Francis said. And Francis is putting his money where his mouth is. On the return flight from the Holy Land to Rome last 26 May, he compared child abuse by priests to a “black mass”, a sacrilegious act. The scandalous arrest of the former Apostolic Nuncio to the Dominical Republic, Jozef Wesolowski, - who had already been condemned by the tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and reduced to the lay state – is proof that Francis is turning his words into action. He has vowed that there will be no privileged treatment for the clerical “caste” and has now deprived a former archbishop of his freedom, where before the latter had enjoyed the protection of diplomatic immunity. Two years ago, another shocking arrest led to the imprisonment of Benedict XVI’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, the poison pen letter writer at the centre of the Vatileaks scandal: the former Pope’s personal assistant who lives in very close quarters with the Pope would photocopy Benedict XVI’s correspondence. He was a layman. This time, however, it is a prelate, a high-ranking prelate in fact, who is in fault and his arrest marks a historical turning point: the Holy See’s institutions must accept responsibility and act with “the just and necessary rigour”, without granting special treatment to those who hold a Vatican passport and wear a red tunic. If he hadn’t left the country, Wesolowski would have been arrested in Santo Domingo. Bearing in mind how serious the charges and evidence against him are, the former Nuncio who used to lure children onto beaches could not continue to walk freely in the streets of Rome.

Pope Francis was apparently shocked when in recent months he read the dossier on the Wesolowski case. "A priest that does this betrays the body of the Lord, because these priests need to lead this boy, this girl, this young man, this young woman, to holiness. And this boy, this girl, they trust him. And this priest, instead of leading them to holiness, abuses them. This is very serious.”

Francis was profoundly affected by the stories told to him by six individuals from Germany, Ireland and Britain, who had fallen victim to paedophile priests. The Pope dedicated an entire morning to these victims last 7 July, meeting each of them face to face. One woman, who had been raped as a child said: “Yes, you reduce these priests to the lay state, you de-priest them. But who controls them once they’ve removed the tunic and left the Church?” These words must have been imprinted in Francis’ mind. After his canonical trial and dismissal from the clerical state, the former Polish archbishop was supposed to undergo a separate criminal trial in his “home” State, the Vatican City State, these words being imprinted in gold on the red front cover of his passport. Francis did not want this man to receive any special treatment.

Pope Francis has fought against the phenomenon of clerical paedophilia and especially against the many cover-up operations that have taken place over the past decades, continuing the work which Benedict XVI carried out with great courage and determination. In 2010, in the midst of the storm that had brewed up over the revelations made in various countries, Francis said that “the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies, but is born of sin within the Church.”

Yesterday’s arrest is in tune with Francis’ broader reform plans in other sectors too, for example the Vatican’s finances and particularly the IOR. It comes not long after the Vatican found itself on many front pages for reasons that were far from holy. This is not justicialism on Francis’ part. He is trying very hard, with much determination without conceding any special treatment to “spoilt children”, to break old “habits and ways of acting typical of a court: intrigue, gossip, cliques, favouritism and partiality,” – as he himself said – and corruption in general. In other words, everything that led to his successor’s resignation.