FERNDALE (MI)
Church Militant
June 3, 2020
By Martina Moyski
Kalisz, Poland – Polish priests have refused to sign letters of loyalty to their diocesan bishop who has been accused of the cover-up of child abuse, choosing instead to stand with the victims.
Priests in the Polish diocese of Kalisz have taken a stand against Bp. Edward Janiak after an incident of child abuse cover-up was exposed in a recent documentary.
The primate of Poland, Wojciech Polak, has also reacted to the revelations of cover-up and has notified the Vatican representative in Poland asking for an investigation.
This case will represent the first one in Poland being processed under the motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi, in which Pope Francis established universal procedural norms for combatting sexual abuse and ensuring that bishops are accountable for their actions.
“I ask priests, nuns, parents and educators to not be led by the false logic of shielding the Church, effectively hiding sexual abusers,” Abp. Polak said in a statement according to Deutsche Welle (DW), a German media outlet. “There is no place among the clergy to sexually abuse minors. We do not allow for the hiding of these crimes.”
The documentary in question is Hide and Seek, produced by Marek and Tomasz Sekielski, and focuses on the abuse of two brothers — Bartek and Jakub Pankowiak — by a parish priest Fr. Arkadiusz Hajdasz in the small town of Pleszew in central Poland. The two brothers were not the only victims, according to the film. The priest is accused of abusing dozens of boys in the 1990s with bishops making multiple attempts to cover up his alleged actions.
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