KRAKóW (POLAND)
Premier Christian News [Crowborough, England]
June 28, 2026
By Donna Birrell
A man who says he was raped as a child by a Catholic priest in Poland is claiming more than 20 million zloty ($5.3m) from the Archdiocese of Krakow.
Janusz Szymik says the abuse began when he was a 12 year old altar boy and took place hundreds of times between 1984 and 1989.
In 1992 and again in 2007, he told the then Bishop of Bielsko-Żywiec, Tadeusz Rakoczy, of the abuse he had suffered and said he feared the priest may have targeted other children. However in 2021, the bishop was disciplined by the Vatican after it was found he had taken no action.
The priest, known as Jan W admitted sexual contact with the victim and in 2024 he was removed from the priesthood.
In January 2025 a court ordered Bielsko-Żywiec diocese to pay Szymik around 400,000 zloty (£106,000) in compensation, the most ever awarded to a victim of clerical sexual abuse in Poland. The judge also decided that the Archdiocese of Krakow should answer for Jan W.’s actions, given that he was under its authority at the time.
That ruling is being appealed, but Szymik has now launched the separate civil proceedings against the archdiocese in what is the largest-ever compensation claim against Poland’s Catholic church by a victim of clerical sexual abuse.
He said he was fighting “first and foremost for justice, as well as for fair compensation for the entire trauma”, adding “my entire life has changed, been turned upside down, especially my spiritual and mental health. I believe that I am a broken person internally, but I am still fighting for justice and reparation. This gives me hope and encouragement that justice will finally be achieved after so many years.”
The Polish church has introduced new rules intended to protect children and other vulnerable people from abuse and has apologised for its neglect in dealing with abuse cases.