VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service
Josephine McKenna | August 27, 2014
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Poland’s ambassador to the Holy See has forcefully condemned the alleged sexual abuse of children by a Polish-born former archbishop and Vatican diplomat, and said Warsaw is considering a fresh request to extradite Jozef Wesolowski to face trial in his homeland.
Ambassador Piotr Nowina-Konopka said Wednesday (Aug. 27) the Polish government was reviewing its options after the Vatican announced this week that the former papal envoy to the Dominican Republic had been defrocked and no longer had diplomatic immunity.
“We are currently analyzing the situation regarding immunity,” the ambassador told Religion News Service in remarks that were unusually frank for a diplomat, and especially one from a country that is as strongly Catholic as Poland.
“Without doubt Poland considers the acts that the archbishop is alleged to have carried out as particularly repugnant and Pope Francis’ firm approach to that type of crime has won great respect and full support in Poland,” Nowina-Konopka said.
Wesolowski, the 66-year-old former papal envoy to the Dominican Republic, was quietly recalled from Santo Domingo last August after rumors emerged that he had sexually molested young boys there. But he is also wanted on sex abuse charges in Poland, though details of the charges were not known.
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