VATICAN CITY
RIA Novosti (Russia)
MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) – Sixty-six-year-old former archbishop Josef Wesolowski, who is suspected of sexually molesting boys while serving as the Holy See’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic, has been placed under house arrest in Vatican City, supposedly under the instructions of Pope Francis, Dominican Today reports.
During his five-year ambassadorship, Wesolowski allegedly paid street boys to perform sexual acts in front of him.
Catholic News Service reported that Wesolowski had been defrocked this June as the result of complaints from the Dominican church hierarchy going back to August 2013. At that time, he was sent back to the Vatican, but no formal charges were leveled against him until his defrocking. Now he faces a separate criminal court hearing in the tiny nation. …
Setting a precedent
Wesolowski’s is to be the first criminal case against a Holy See official for sexual abuse against minors. He will also be the highest ranking official to be investigated under the Vatican’s laws, which were revised last September. The new laws are more specific about instances of sexual crimes against children, and propose harsher penalties for violators.
Wesolowski may receive up to 12 years in prison if convicted. It is unclear whether he would serve out his sentence within the Vatican, or in an Italian prison.
An English-language Vatican spokesman told the Washington Post that this case will be “history in the making,” and that Vatican lawmakers will be “developing a procedure here.” Speaking of the broad church’s interest in the matter, he noted that “we’re all watching to see how this will happen.”
Prior to the update, carried out under Pope Francis, the Vatican had been using a modified version of Italy’s criminal code from 1889. Francis has spoken more forcefully about the subject than his predecessors, noting that the sexual abuse of children is an “ugly crime” which should have “zero tolerance”.
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