The Polish press reports that the United Nations grilled the Vatican delegation on the Archbishop Josef Wesolowski child sex abuse case at the Geneva hearings yesterday, Thursday 16 January. The Polish priest was the papal nuncio in the Dominican Republic from 2008-2013 when he was removed after investigative journalists began to reveal his involvement in pedophile activities. Another Polish priest working in Juncalito, Santiago, Father Wojciech Gil has also been accused of abusing minors there. In May, Gil relocated to Poland where Polish police are investigating the allegations against him.
Spokesman for the Vatican delegation, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi told the UN committee investigating the charges that the case against Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who faces child sex abuse charges, is being “given the severity it deserves”.
The Catholic News Agency says that Wesolowski could be convicted under the Holy See’s civil law and jailed in Vatican City.
The Vatican’s UN Ambassador Monsignor Silvano Tomasi was questioned over clerical sexual abuse of children at the headquarters of the UN’s office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the Palais Wilson, in Geneva, 16 January. The Vatican is accused of covering up for its own members.
Archbishop Tomasi told the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Thursday, 16 January that the Vatican announced last week it would not be extraditing Jozef Wesolowski, the former Vatican representative in the Dominican Republic, back to the Caribbean island, or to Poland, to face the charges against him because he was a citizen of the Vatican and will face charges there following an investigation into the case.
“A citizen of Vatican City State has been placed under investigation for alleged sexual crimes committed against children outside the territory of Vatican City State,” Archbishop Tomasi told the committee, adding that the case would be handled “with the severity it deserves.”
The Vatican signed the convention in 1990 but from 1994 to 2012 presented no annual progress reports on tackling child abuse to the committee, despite numerous investigations of alleged child abuse by clergy, often dating back decades, in the US, Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.
Wesolowski is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be investigated for alleged sex abuse. He is now thought to be living in Rome and is protected from extradition by diplomatic immunity.
www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/protecting-children-is-church-priority-vatican-officials-tell-un/
www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u-n-committee-criticizes-vatican-allegedly-enabling-child-sex-abuse-article-1.1581758#ixzz2qf8nasa6