Polish church defends Pope John Paul II’s record on child sex abuse

The Catholic church in Poland has defended Polish Pope John Paul II’s response to child sex abuse during his pontificate. It says “media attacks” claiming he was negligent are an “attempt to undermine his authority and question his sanctity” because his ideas “do not correspond to contemporary ideologies promoting hedonism”.

John Paul II – born Karol Wojtyła – served as pope from 1978 until his death in 2005. He remains a widely revered figure in Poland not only for his spiritual leadership but also for the role he played in helping bring about the end of communist rule in his homeland and the wider region.

However, recent years have seen growing questions over his response to sexual abuse of minors by clergy – including senior church figures – during his pontificate.

In 2020, the Vatican itself released a report showing that John Paul II had promoted Theodore McCarrick to be archbishop of Washington and a cardinal in 2001 despite claims of sexual misconduct against him. In 2019, McCarrick was found guilty of sexual crimes by a church investigation and dismissed from the priesthood.

Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, who for decades served as personal secretary to John Paul II, has also been accused of ignoring cases of sexual abuse. However, a Vatican investigation this year cleared Dziwisz of wrongdoing during his time as archbishop of Kraków.

A number of other Polish bishops have, though, faced punishment from the Vatican in recent years for their negligence in responding to cases of abuse.

In a statement issued last week, the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP) – the central organ of the Catholic church in Poland – noted that there are “ever more questions in the public sphere about the attitude of John Paul II towards the tragedy of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people”.

It added that there is now “a kind of fashion” for claiming that John Paul II “did not approach such acts properly and did little to solve this problem, or even concealed it”. These “fit in with the attempts to undermine the authority of John Paul II, and even to question his sanctity”.

The “media attack” on the former pope – who was made a saint in 2014 – is motivated by the fact that “the theology…preached by him does not correspond to contemporary ideologies promoting hedonism, relativism and moral nihilism”, continued the statement.

The KEP pointed out that in 1983 John Paul II introduced a new code of canon law that explicitly obliged members of the clergy guilty of sexual abuse to be punished and then took further steps in the 1990s to ensure greater protection of children and young people.

Then, in 2001, he issued an apostolic letter, Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, that brought jurisdiction over cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy under the direct control of the Vatican. “This unprecedented decision showed that John Paul II realised the scale and global nature of the crisis,” wrote the KEP.

“From the actions of John Paul II in the face of the crisis there emerges the image of a shepherd who courageously and decisively wanted to face it…[and] also help society to counter the scourge of sexual crimes against minors and the vulnerable,” concluded the Polish episcopate.

In response to the statement, OKO.press, a liberal investigative journalism and fact-checking outlet, claimed that the points made in defence of John Paul II contained numerous “manipulations” and that the former pope had in reality done little to deal with the problem of abuse in the church.

Main image credit: Steve Grant/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.