SOSNOWIEC (POLAND)
The Tablet [Market Harborough, England]
December 5, 2025
By Adam Easton
The priest named in the filing as Fr Jacek K. was one of two serving priests from the Diocese of Sosnowiec arrested in October 2024 and charged with sexually abusing children.
Prosecutors in Poland filed an indictment against a priest from a diocese that has faced recent scrutiny for child sex abuse allegations.
The priest, named as Fr Jacek K. under Polish privacy laws, from the Diocese of Sosnowiec in Upper Silesia, southern Poland, faces 10 charges, including nine counts of sexually abusing seven minors when he served as a priest and taught religion classes between 2008 and 2024.
The tenth charge relates to pornographic videos and images of children found on the priest’s data storage devices.
The indictment was submitted to court on 5 December, a spokesman for the district prosecutor’s office in Sosnowiec told the state news agency PAP. He said the priest had exploited the children’s helplessness and difficult social circumstances. Fr Jacek K. has been remanded in custody and faces up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.
He was one of two serving priests from the Diocese of Sosnowiec arrested in October 2024 and charged with sexually abusing children. A third man, a former priest, was also charged, and later convicted of fraud. The trial of the second serving priest Dariusz L. on nine counts of child sexual offences continues.
The allegations against the priests surfaced in March 2023 during a separate investigation into the murder of a 26-year-old deacon by a 40-year-old priest at a church residence in Sosnowiec.
Prosecutors said the priest fired six shots from a revolver at the deacon and stabbed him multiple times before taking his own life. Both served at the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Sosnowiec.
In October 2024, the Bishop of Sosnowiec Artur Ważny ordered the creation of a diocesan commission “for clarification and remediation of sensitive matters”, to investigate incidents in the diocese.
Bishop Ważny was appointed in May last year after Bishop Grzegorz Kaszak resigned in October 2023 following reports that a priest in the diocese had organised a sex party during which a male prostitute lost consciousness and was prevented from receiving medical treatment from paramedics.