An appeals court has ruled that the Catholic church in Poland must pay 300,000 zloty (€67,000) compensation to a man who was repeatedly sexually abused by a priest while serving as an altar boy.
The church’s lawyers had argued that an “institution cannot take responsibility for the act of a single man”, and also suggested that the victim – named only as Arek – was himself to blame because he had agreed to go on a trip with the priest in question.
Judge Barbara Rączka-Sekścińska dismissed these arguments, saying in her justification for the ruling that “the bishops were aware of the paedophilia of their subordinate”, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.
The appeals court in Gdańsk found that the bishops of Wrocław and Bydgoszcz had directly contributed to the harm caused to the victim by recklessly failing to restrict the priest’s contact with children, said Arek’s lawyer, Janusz Mazur, speaking to investigative news website OKO.press.
As a result of the ruling, which upholds the decision of a lower court, the archdiocese of Wroclaw and the diocese of Bydgoszcz must pay damages of 300,000 zloty to the victim as well as legal costs.
A spokesman for the archdiocese of Wroclaw, Rafał Kowalski, said that they had never rejected the idea of helping victims of the priest in question, Paweł Kania. They had simply wanted to establish who is legally responsible for his actions. “It was our position that the perpetrator was, but the court decided differently,” Kowalski said.
However, in its submissions to the appeals court, the archdiocese also appeared to put some blame on the victim. “If the plaintiff had not decided to go on a private trip with Paweł Kania there would have been no harm,” wrote their lawyer, quoted by OKO.press.
Kania’s case was one of those that featured in a groundbreaking documentary on paedophilia in Poland’s Catholic church and alleged attempts to cover it up by the church hierarchy.
Kania’s archbishop in Wrocław, Marian Gołębiewski, was first made aware of his inappropriate behaviour towards underage boys in 2004, reports OKO.press.
The following year, Kania was arrested for the first time, after being accused of offering underage boys money for sex. Police also found him to be in possession of child pornography.
Kania’s superiors in the archdiocese of Wrocław would also have been aware of these accusations, notes OKO.press. However, they still transferred Kania to the diocese of Bydgoszcz, where the bishop also knew that he had been investigated, says Arek’s lawyer.
Kania was nevertheless appointed to teach Catholic catechism at a school in Bydgoscz. He also took students on trips to the swimming pool, where he sought to touch and hug them, reports OKO.press. It was during this period that he first came into contact with the then 11-year-old Arek.
When the headmaster of the school complained to the bishop that Kania’s relationship with pupils was “too intimate”, the priest was transferred back to the archdiocese of Wrocław. There, a fellow priest and an altar boy reportedly informed the bishop of abuse by Kania, but no action was taken against him.
Only in 2010, when a final sentence was issued against Kania for possession of child pornography, was he suspended from office by the church. However, after a few months, he was again permitted to celebrate mass and administer the sacraments, although he remained banned from contact with children.
On Christmas Eve in 2012, Kania was then caught by police in a hotel with the still-underage Arek, reports TVN24. He was also in possession of a camera and child pornography, including films of him and the altar boy.
In 2015, Kania was sentenced to seven years in prison for those crimes, and in 2019 he was finally removed from the priesthood by the church.
Two of the bishops who allowed Kania to be moved from parish to parish – Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz and Edward Janiak – have in recent months faced disciplinary action from the Vatican.
Gulbinowicz, who died in November, had himself been accused of abuse. Shortly before his death, he was banned from public ministry, public appearances and the use of bishop’s insignia, in what has been described as an “unprecedented move”.
In June, Janiak was relieved of duty as bishop of Kalisz while the Vatican investigated claims that he covered up child sex abuse. In October, he was permanently removed from his position by Pope Francis.
Speaking this year, the legal representative of one of Kania’s victims said that children have become not only “victims of the priest that physically raped [them] but of the whole system that allowed for moving a paedophile priest from one place to another”.
The latest ruling in Gdańsk follows a landmark decision by the Polish Supreme Court in March. It upheld a decision ordering a Catholic religious order to pay one million zloty compensation to a woman who was repeatedly abused by a member of the order.
Last month, a journalistic investigation broadcast on Poland’s largest private television station claimed that Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – who for decades served as personal secretary to Polish Pope John Paul II – ignored cases of sex abuse and accepted bribes from those accused of wrongdoing.
The Catholic church in Poland has faced increased scrutiny in recent years as such cases have come to light. Earlier this year, polling showed that it had seen a greater decline in trust than any other major Polish institution.
In response, the episcopate has sought to put in place stronger systems for preventing and reporting abuse, as well as to support victims.
Main image credit: Tomasz Pietrzyk / Agencja Gazeta
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
