UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph (UK)
By AFP
A former Polish archbishop was placed in intensive care on Saturday, just hours before his unprecedented trial on paedophilia charges was due to start at the Vatican, the Holy See said.
Jozef Wesolowski is accused of sexually abusing minors during his 2008-13 stint as Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic and of possessing child pornography in Rome in 2013-14.
The hospitalisation of the 66-year-old, who has been suffering unspecified ill health for several months, means Saturday’s session will likely simply record the start of the case and then recess, Vatican officials told reporters covering the trial.
His case is seen as a test of Pope Francis’s push to prosecute sexual predators in the face of accusations that the Catholic Church has not done enough to identify and punish paedophiles in its midst.
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