VATICAN CITY
International Business Times
By Umberto Bacchi
June 27, 2014
The former Holy See envoy to the Dominican Republic has been convicted and defrocked over child abuse in an unprecedented trial at the Vatican.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office tasked with overseeing the Church’s integrity, also known as the Holy Office, found Polish archbishop Josef Wesolowski guilty of sex abuse during his tenure as papal nuncio in Santo Domingo.
The canonical trial’s verdict conferred a sentence of laicization – the banishment of a priest from the clergy. It is the harshest penalty possible the Holy Office can hand to a cleric.
The 66-year-old is also facing the prospect of imprisonment in the Vatican’s tiny jail, as, when all appeals are exhausted, he will be tried by a criminal tribunal of the city state.
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