A victim of abuse in a Catholic residential care home for children run by nuns has been awarded 500,000 zloty (€112,908) compensation in the largest ever such payout in Poland.
His experiences – which have previously resulted in the director of the centre being jailed – included being beaten and psychologically abused by the nuns, who also allowed him to be raped and beaten by older children.
🟢Walka mojego Klienta o godność była dla niego długa i wymagająca, ale sprawiedliwość jest dziś górą!
🟢Sąd Okręgowy w Warszawie zasądził bohaterowi reportażu „Czy Bóg wybaczy siostrze Bernadetcie” pół miliona złotych zadośćuczynienia. pic.twitter.com/pNX1YpmpFn— Przemysław Rosati (@adwokatRosati) July 24, 2023
The victim – named only as Paweł – was sent to the centre aged 18 months and remained there for over 12 years. In 2006, aged 14, he was transferred to another institution after telling a teacher that the sisters were locking him up overnight with two boys who were raping him. He was first raped at the age of six.
His case was among those reported in a 2014 book, Will God Forgive Sister Bernadetta, by journalist Justyna Kopińska about the care centre run by the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo in the city of Zabrze in southern Poland.
The nuns beat children under their care “with hangers, soup ladles, a belt, whisks, keys, chairs,” Kopińska wrote. The sisters also turned a blind eye to rapes committed by older boys.
Two nuns have been charged by prosecutors following an investigation into alleged abuse at a care home in Poland.
Disabled children were reportedly tied to beds, locked in cages, beaten with a mop and verbally abused https://t.co/aKusSuWJrm
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 13, 2022
The violence was allowed by the centre’s director, who has been named in the media only as Agnieszka F. but is also known under her religious name as Sister Bernadetta.
In a separate criminal case, she was in 2010 given a two-year suspended prison sentence for abusing children and inciting the rape of minors by older children. A year later, that sentence was changed on appeal to two years in prison, not suspended.
For three years, Agnieszka F. requested a postponement of her sentence due to her old age (she was in her late 50s) and poor health. But she was finally admitted to prison in 2014. Another nun, Bogumiła Ł., received a suspended eight-month sentence. The care centre itself was closed down.
After Sister Bernadetta’s conviction, her religious order issued a statement “apologising once again for all the evil that the pupils at the center in Zabrze have suffered” and pledging to “do everything in our human power to prevent any cases in the future”.
A Catholic diocese has been ordered to pay compensation to a man sexually abused as a child by a priest.
The victim was treated as an “accomplice in the sin of adultery” at a church trial that acquitted the priest, who was later convicted by a state court https://t.co/IHay5h56SG
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 10, 2022
Among those beaten personally by Sister Bernadetta was Paweł. After his story was featured in Kopińska’s book, the reporter was approached by a lawyer, Przemysław Rosati, who offered to represent Paweł in a lawsuit for damages.
On Paweł’s behalf, Rosati – who is now president of the Supreme Bar Council – sued the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, Agnieszka F., and PZU, the insurer of the religious order. He demanded one million zloty in compensation and monthly payments of 2,500 zloty.
Warsaw’s district court has now awarded 500,000 zloty to Paweł, to be paid jointly by all the defendants. The verdict can still be appealed, and the court declined to justify its decision orally, Rosati told news service OKO.press.
After a report indicated over 1,000 victims of child sex abuse by priests in communist Poland, a bishop admits the church was "naive in dealing with these crimes"
But he also notes the communists exploited the issue to blackmail priests into collaborating https://t.co/NfXywWnPkK
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) May 19, 2023
His “client is satisfied with the decision” and unlikely to appeal, the lawyer added in a separate interview with broadcaster RMF. Rosati, however, is still waiting for the written justification of the verdict.
“I would like to emphasise clearly that the essence is not the monetary amount, but the very fact of bringing this case to a conclusion, to show that there was evil going on in this centre,” said the attorney.
The ruling was also announced by Kopińska, who noted that it is the highest amount of compensation given to the victim of violence in such a care facility. The religious order has not yet publicly commented on the verdict.
Recent years have seen a growing number of cases of child abuse in Poland’s Catholic church come to light, as well as evidence of negligence in dealing with the issue by bishops, a number of whom have been punished by the Vatican as a result.
In 2020, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling ordering a Catholic religious order to pay one million zloty in compensation to a woman who was repeatedly abused by a member of the order.
Last year the diocese of Kalisz was ordered to pay 300,000 zloty and the diocese of Toruń was ordered to pay 600,000 złoty in cases brought by men abused by priests as children. Also last year the prosecution brought charges against two nuns working at a care home for alleged abuse of disabled children.
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Main image credit: Grzegorz Celejewski / Agencja Gazeta
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
