Ex- Archbishop Falls Ill Ahead of Trial at the Vatican

By Tyler Owen
Rapid News Network
July 11, 2015

http://rapidnewsnetwork.com/ex-archbishop-falls-ill-ahead-of-trial-at-the-vatican/69289/

Charges included possession of what prosecutors described as “enormous” quantities of child pornography on his two computers, including after Wesolowski was recalled to the Vatican following the emergence of rumors that he sexually abused shoeshine boys near Santo Domingo’s waterfront.

Dominican foreign minister Carlos Morales Troncoso (Left), Papal Nuncio Jozef Wesolowski (centre) and Colombian ambassador to the Dominican Republic, General (ret) Mario Montoya during a ceremony in Santo Somingo, August 12, 2011.

The leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, declared back in March that there should be “zero tolerance” against perpetrators of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, later told journalists that Wesolowski felt ill on Friday afternoon, was taken to a Vatican infirmary, and then transferred to a hospital.

The Vatican has always been accused of not taking action against church officials allegedly involved in child molestation, but Pope Francis vowed to clean up the church after succeeding Pope Benedict in February, 2013.

Wesolowski was ordained and later appointed as bishop by St. John Paul II, a fellow Pole whose papacy was marked by reluctance to fire bishops in abuse scandals.

He was also accused of causing “serious harm” to the children because of the mental trauma they had suffered.

In Saturday’s six-minute hearing in a tiny courtroom, the clerk read out the charges, including one of “conduct that offends the principles of Christian religion or morality for having repeatedly accessed pornographic sites”, including while in Vatican City.

His diplomatic immunity has also been revoked, which meant that he could potentially have been tried in the Domincan Republic – however, as a city-state, the Vatican has its own courts, and will try him there.

He has already been found guilty by a special church tribunal and defrocked.

It is no coincidence that the ex- nuncio goes on trial thanks to a piece of legislation introduced by Francis himself in July 2013, when he ruled that all Vatican “public officials” were subject to Vatican City State criminal law (which now includes paedophile crime).

While some of the groups representing victims of priestly abuse have welcomed the Wesolowski trial, they have said much more needs to be done to root out wrongdoers.

“It’s very important that they do this right and I’m pretty sure that the date was chosen so that there wasn’t a big media circus surrounding day one of the trial”, said Robert Mickens, editor-in-chief of the Catholic magazine Global Pulse.

A Vatican official has said the trial is likely to continue for several months.

High-ranking Vatican official Jozef Wesolowski set to stand trial for child