Dominican author Nestor Medano has published a novel, “Sotanas en el lodo” (Cassocks in Mud), based on the life of Roman Catholic Church Nuncio Jozef Wesolowski. The Polish cleric was allowed to leave the Dominican Republic after investigative journalists revealed grave charges of child sexual abuse. He would go on to be defrocked by the Vatican.
Wesolowski would have been the first high-level cleric to stand trial for child sexual abuse. Nevertheless, he was found dead at the Vatican City residence where he lived. A statement from the Vatican said that he died from natural causes at age 67. In the Dominican Republic, investigations revealed his victims were young boys ages 8 to 16.
The book also tells the story of the alleged lover of the nuncio, a Dominican deacon, and that of Wojciech Gil (Padre Alberto), another Polish priest who would be later sentenced in Poland for sexual abuse of Dominican children when he worked in the town of Juncalito in Santiago province.
Author Medrano says: “Wesolowski is a novel character because he is part of the tradition of the Vatican novel if you like, where unusual things happen in a way that is accepted by a tradition of much corruption from which in this case our country did not escape.”
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Diario Libre
NYTimes
10 February 2020