VATICAN CITY
The Tablet
24 September 2014 10:08 by Josef Pazderka, CNS
The Vatican has placed the laicised papal ambassador Jozef Wesolowski under house arrest as he awaits a criminal trial for sexually abusing young boys, Catholic News Service reports.
Holy See spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi released a statement on Tuesday regarding the case of the Polish former archbishop who served as nuncio to the Dominican Republic until August 2013. A Vatican prosecutor had summoned Wesolowski and informed him of the charges against him, Fr Lombardi said.
Because of the “gravity of the accusations” investigators decided to arrest the former ambassador, the spokesman said, but “in light of the medical condition of the accused, supported by medical documentation”, he was placed under house arrest in Vatican City. The Vatican announced in June that a canonical court had investigated Wesolowski on charges of sexual abuse in the Dominican Republic and concluded by dismissing him from the clerical state, depriving him of all rights and duties associated with being a priest except the obligation of celibacy. Wesolowski would face a criminal trial under the laws of Vatican City State, the Vatican said at the time.
Fr Lombardi said Vatican authorities had acted in accordance with the “will expressed by the Pope, that such a grave and delicate case might be addressed without delay, with the just and necessary rigour, with the full assumption of responsibility by the institutions of the Holy See”.
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