VATICAN CITY
ABC News
VATICAN CITY — Aug 25, 2014, 3:14 PM ET
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
The Vatican said Monday that its former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, accused of sexually abusing young boys in the Caribbean country, had lost his diplomatic immunity and could be tried by Dominican courts.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a statement that Josef Wesolowski had ended all diplomatic activity for the Holy See and lost his related immunity and therefore “might also be subjected to judicial procedures from the courts that could have specific jurisdiction over him.”
The Vatican recalled Wesolowski last August after rumors emerged in the Dominican Republic that he had sexually molested young boys there. The case was highly sensitive, given that the Polish-born Wesolowski was an ambassador of the Holy See — not just one of the world’s 440,000 priests — and had been ordained both a priest and a bishop by St. John Paul II.
This summer, a Vatican tribunal found him guilty under canon law of abusing young boys and defrocked him, the harshest sentence under church law and the first time such a high-ranking Vatican official had been sanctioned for sex abuse. Wesolwski recently appealed that sentence and a final decision is expected in October, Lombardi said.
After that appeal is heard, the Vatican’s criminal courts will take up the case and jail time is possible if he is found guilty.
As a papal diplomat and citizen of the Vatican City State, Wesolowski faces criminal charges by the tribunal of the Vatican City, which recently updated its laws to specifically criminalize sex abuse of children. It is not clear, however, if the new 2013 law can be applied retroactively.
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