Fr. Joseph Szarek

From Poland, where he was ordained in 1939. Also known as Fr. Joseph Shar. Began his priesthood as a St. Vincent DePaul Missionary. Arrived in the U.S. in 1941. Named publicly as accused by the Diocese of Saginaw on its list in 2019. Worked in the diocese 1952 – until 12/1958, when he was removed from ministry. Szarek was later accepted by the Diocese of Albany, where he was incardinated in 1976. He died 5/15/1999. Name added to the Albany diocese’s list 12/4/2019. Included in the MI Attorney General’s 6/25/2026 Diocese of Saginaw Report. In a 12/1958 letter to the Apostolic Delegation in Washington DC, Saginaw’s Bishop Woznicki wrote, in part, that there was “unnecessary fondling” of little girls by Szarek, and that he advised Szarek to “leave the diocese and the state at once in order to avoid a possible nasty scandal.” The parents of an 11-year-old girl had complained to Woznicki that Szarek would put his arms around their daughter and other girls, as young as age 8, from behind, and make “peculiar motions with his knees.” In 1988 the Diocese of Saginaw received an allegation that Szarek sexually abused a girl, age 4, in 1958. Szarek’s accuser said that he also abused 6-9 other children who were ages 4-10. She confronted Szarek at his then-parish in Troy, NY, who did not deny it and told her to “say nothing” to the other children or to Bishop Untener. In 2002 a woman reported to Bishop Untener that she was sexually abused by Szarek at a parish when she was age 10 in 1957. The Diocese of Albany told Saginaw that it did not have complaints on file about Szarek; a Saginaw nun, however, said that in 1994 a nun called Albany to report allegations by 2-3 women that Szarek had fondled them in MI as children. In 2020 another woman told the Diocese of Saginaw that Szarek sexually abused her, in 1958 when she was age 7, at St. Josaphat’s in Carrolton MI, and that he also abused her two friends, sometimes all three of them together. She said that Szarek would pinch her nipples, put his hands down her underwear, penetrate her, and ejaculate on her. She said her father found out, told the pastor, and Szarek was transferred.