AGAWAM (MA)
The Republican - MassLive [Springfield MA]
August 11, 2026
By Daniel Jackson
Editor’s note: This story describes allegations of child sex abuse and contains a mention of suicide.
A lawsuit filed last week accuses a Catholic priest of repeatedly groping a teenager while the cleric led a church in Agawam a little more than a decade ago.
Before he left the priesthood, before he pleaded guilty to possessing a forged passport and before he was reassigned to churches in the Miami area, Tomasz Parzynski ran St. John the Evangelist Church between 2013 and 2015.
His departure from the Agawam church prompted hundreds of parishioners to lobby the bishop at the time to reconsider the reassignment.
“Strange” was Parzynski’s response when hearing about the civil lawsuit’s allegations from a reporter. “I have no idea about that. You’re the first person telling me these things.”
The lawsuit accuses Parzynski of repeatedly groping the buttocks and genitals of a boy while they were together in the sacristy of the church. The boy – who is referred to in the complaint as “John Doe” – was between the ages 14 and 16 at the time.
The experience left the youth with nightmares, phantom sensations of abuse and he required inpatient treatment for thoughts of suicide when he was 16, according to the complaint.
“During the incidents of sexual abuse,” the complaint says, “Father Parzynski told the young and vulnerable Plaintiff, who was merely hoping to fulfill a holy sacrament sacred to his religious beliefs, that the sexual abuse was what Jesus wanted, and that it was how Plaintiff could ‘fully embrace [Jesus].’”
The lawsuit also names the Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield as a defendant, saying years of shortcomings when it came to investigating, reporting and disclosing instances of clergy sex abuse festered a situation that “emboldened predatory priests.”
A spokesperson for the Springfield Diocese declined to comment.
The Boston firm Sweeney Merrigan Law filed the lawsuit, a firm which is also representing a man in a recent lawsuit alleging decades-old sexual abuse at the hands of Bishop Joseph F. Maguire. Its attorneys did not return a request for comment.
Parzynski left after period of change at Agawam church
In 2015, Parzynski said he was upset upon learning the news of his transfer. But he said Tuesday he had asked to be moved from the Agawam church. He said he was making a lot of changes administratively at the church that had been “abandoned for many years,” and he was dealing with internal politics.
As part of the transfer process, he said, the church checks a priest’s background for allegations.
A diocesan spokesperson said in 2015 that while Parzynski’s transfer was necessary, the reasons were not “of a criminal nature.”
At the time, about 2,000 families attended St. John the Evangelist. Attendance grew, Parzynski said at the time, as he added four traditional Latin Masses a week, started a choir and began a youth religious education program.
A parishioner said at the time his changes sparked an interest in church in her teenage son and his friends.
Before he was ordained in 2010, Parzynski spent time at Immaculate Conception Parish in Holyoke. He served at St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Pittsfield as a parochial vicar before he arrived at St. John the Evangelist in 2013.
The transfer sent him to Miami’s St. John Neumann Catholic Church, according to the complaint.
Parzynski’s name does not appear on the Diocese of Springfield’s list of credibly accused priests. As of last year, the Miami Diocese was one of the few dioceses in the country that had not released a list of priests found to have been credibly accused of engaging in sex abuse, according to Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
St. John Neumann Church announced in 2018 that Parzynski transferred to St. Isidro Parish in Pompano Beach, Florida. In its post, it described Parzynski as “delightful, talented and hard working.”
About a year and a half later, Parzynski faced criminal proceedings in federal court.
Three months imprisonment for an altered passport
Parzynski initially told customs officials he found the Uruguayan passport in the trash.
He had touched down at Fort Lauderdale International Airport on Aug. 10, 2019, after flying from Stockholm, Sweden, and officials directed him to a secondary inspection.
At first, Parzynski told officials he did not have any false documents, according to a statement of facts as part of a change of plea filed in the federal case in December 2019. Then he said he got it out of the trash after officials said they would search his bags. Finally, he said he purchased the passport on eBay.
“The Uruguayan passport appeared to have a counterfeit biographical page glued over the authentic biographical page,” says the statement of facts.
Judge Jose Martinez sentenced Parzynski to three months incarceration followed by two years of supervised release in February 2020.
“It’s done,” Parzynski said when asked about the case. “I served my time.”
He said he left the priesthood by his “own will” after the criminal case involving the passport.
By 2021, he was working as a truck driver, according to prosecutors.
After the proceedings in federal court, Parzynski would face a diocesan review board, which could decide to impose sanctions, including a transfer, according to the transcript of his sentencing hearing on Feb. 20, 2020.
At the hearing, Parzynski’s attorney, Thomas Payne, said his client purchased seven expired passports from eBay, which he later burned. He did not use them for immigration purposes, Payne said, but rather he gave two to people who were underage so they could enter a club.
On the judge’s mind was information in a confidential memorandum about Parzynski’s medical history and his travel to 15 countries.
Some documents before the judge suggested that Parzynski “had numerous sexual encounters with men all over the world … (and) he apparently exposed all of these men to illness,” Martinez said.
Parzynski said during the hearing he likes to travel often and travel inexpensively. Many trips were taken to see friends and family, he told the judge.
“Your Honor, I confess to you my biggest problem and I [am] taking care of it having medications and not having any relation[s],” Parzynski said at his sentencing hearing. “I have already my brother in prison and I don’t know how I will handle that. Please be merciful for me.”