LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC

July 20, 2019

By Adam Easton

Warsaw – Marek Mielewczyk was a 13-year-old altar boy when a priest asked him to come to his presbytery.

“This is where I was abused for the first time,” he says.

He is one of several victims, now adults, featured in a documentary about Polish priests who sexually abused children.

Tomasz and Marek Sekielski’s film, Don’t Tell Anyone, was watched 20 million times in the first week of its digital release – and prompted an unprecedented challenge to Poland’s Roman Catholic Church.

More than 90% of Poles identity themselves as Catholics. For many, the Church and its rituals do not just provide spiritual comfort: they are part of a national identity.

That might explain why Poles have been slow to question the behaviour of some of their own priests, despite sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church in Ireland,…