TARNóW (POLAND)
The Pillar [Washington DC]
October 29, 2026
By Luke Coppen
A district court gave Bishop Andrzej Jeż a non-custodial sentence for failing to promptly notify law enforcement of accusations of abuse.
A Polish diocese said Thursday that it plans to appeal the conviction of its bishop for failing to report abuse allegations promptly to civil authorities. The ruling is the first of its kind against a bishop in Poland.
The Diocese of Tarnów made the announcement Oct. 29 after the local district court gave Bishop Andrzej Jeż a non-custodial sentence for not swiftly notifying law enforcement after receiving credible information about alleged sexual offenses against children under 15 by two priests.
The court ordered that 25% of Jeż’s monthly salary be donated to a children’s foundation for two years. It also said he must pay 20,000 złotys (around $5,000) to a Polish government fund supporting crime victims and their families.
Prosecutors had requested a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for three years, and a fine of 20,000 złotys, while the defense argued for acquittal.
The website Notes from Poland reported that the court gave Jeż, who was not present in court for the judgment, “a sentence known as ‘restriction of liberty’ (ograniczenie wolności), under which a convict is not imprisoned but required to do some kind of social good.”
The Tarnów diocese said: “The judgment is not final and does not conclusively determine the criminal liability of Bishop Andrzej Jeż. The defense lawyers will apply for the preparation of written reasons for the judgment. After reviewing their contents and conducting a detailed analysis, an appeal will be lodged.”
Before 2017, Polish law imposed a “social duty” to report crimes, including child sexual abuse, but failure to fulfill the duty was not in itself punishable. From 2017, failure to promptly report specified offenses, including certain sexual offenses against children under 15, became a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison.
The obligation to promptly notify law enforcement, enshrined in Article 240 of the Polish Penal Code, entered into force on July 13, 2017. The prosecutor’s charges against Jeż related to two cases that were reported by the bishop’s safeguarding delegate to the state authorities after the law came into effect.
The defense had called for Jeż’s acquittal, arguing there was legal uncertainty about whether the duty introduced in 2017 applied to offenses committed before the change took effect.
Poland’s Supreme Court clarified in 2022 that the reporting obligation also applied to people who had already received credible information about offenses before that date but failed to notify law enforcement after the obligation came into force.
The defense argued that Jeż should not be judged as though the legal interpretation was settled at the time he made the decisions concerning the two priests.
Delivering the judgment, judge Małgorzata Adamczyk said: “The court considers that the defendant’s duty was — only, and yet all that was required — to make the appropriate reports, rather than assess each individual case himself.”
“Any doubts should have been left to the relevant authorities to resolve, rather than taking upon himself responsibility for the harm discussed by the parties in this courtroom, primarily in their closing arguments, but not exclusively.”
She added: “In the court’s view, it is clear that the defendant put his own interests ahead of the welfare of the victims. His conduct must be judged more stringently than that of an ordinary citizen, because he also bears responsibility arising from the authority entrusted to him.”
“The greater the authority, the greater the knowledge and the ability to prevent harm, the harder it is to morally justify a failure to act.”
Prosecutor Marcin Stępień said: “For us, this verdict sends one clear message: regardless of the position we hold or our standing in society, Article 240 of the Penal Code applies equally to everyone.”
Following the conviction, the Tarnów diocese offered a detailed account of the bishop’s handling of the cases of the two priests, identified only as Stanisław P. and Tomasz K.
Stanisław P. allegedly abused at least 95 boys in Poland and Ukraine between 1987 and 2008. Prosecutors discontinued a probe into the allegations against him in 2022 because the time limit for prosecution had passed, but he has been dismissed from the clerical state.
Tomasz K. is accused of abusing three minors between 2008 and 2010. In 2023, prosecutors ordered that charges be brought against him, but they were never presented because of his health, and prosecutors did not pursue the case further.
The Tarnów diocese said Jeż gained “specific knowledge” that Stanisław P. had abused minors only in 2019. After the bishop determined the information to be credible, his delegate informed law enforcement in August 2020.
The diocese said that one of Stanisław P.’s victims had reported the priest to the district prosecutor’s office in Opole in 2010, so the authorities had been aware of allegations against him before the delegate’s report.
The diocese insisted that Jeż first learned that Tomasz K. had allegedly abused a minor under the age of 15 only toward the end of 2021.
“Immediately after discovering this information, Bishop Jeż instructed that the matter be reported to the law enforcement authorities. The bishop’s delegate did so on Dec. 16, 2021,” it said.
The diocese explained that Tomasz K. had faced earlier canonical administrative and penal proceedings in which “witness testimony contradicted the claim that the victims had been under 15 years of age at the time of the offenses.”
“Nevertheless, Tomasz K. received an ecclesiastical penalty in connection with acts committed against minors under the age of 18,” it said.
Jeż, 63, has led the Tarnów diocese since 2012. The Tarnów diocese has consistently recorded Poland’s highest rate of Sunday Mass attendance.