VATICAN CITY
Mic
By Jared Keller
A former archbishop placed under house arrest by the Vatican on Tuesday allegedly had 100,000 child pornography videos and images hidden on his work computer at the Holy See’s compound in the Dominican Republic, according to a report in Italy’s Il Corriere della Sera newspaper.
The Vatican arrested Jozef Wesolowski on Tuesday under allegations of paying for sex with minors while serving papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic. Wesolowski, who was defrocked by a Vatican tribunal in June, was been placed under house awaiting a criminal trial, Reuters reports. This was the Holy See’s first-ever arrest inside Vatican City on charges of paedophilia.
“A gallery of horrors was kept on his laptop,” Il Corriere della Sera reports. “You see children aged between thirteen and seventeen humiliated in front of the camera, filmed naked, forced to have sex with each other and with adults.”
The Vatican said the arrest reflects the wishes of Pope Francis “that such a grave and delicate case be handled without delay, with the just and necessary rigour.”
The Pope had vowed “zero tolerance” against clergymen who sexually abuse children. In July, Francis met with victims of clerical sexual abuse for the first time in Vatican history, pledging the church officials responsible would be held accountable by the Vatican and likening the abuse to a “sacrilegious cult.”
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