Over the years, recurring accusations have been made in the media in Poland and elsewhere that Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II, had covered up cases of clerical sexual abuse and had even transferred accused priests from parish to parish.
But Tomasz Krzyżak, an expert in canon law and journalist who has conducted research in Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance and the newly opened archives of the Archdiocese of Kraków, disagrees with those claims. He says that the future Pope St. John Paul II, “dealt with sexual abuse seriously, applied the provisions of canon law, and never covered anything up.”
Krzyżak is pursuing a PhD in canon law at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. Since 2024, he has been the chairman of the “Commission to Explain and Remedy Sensitive Matters,” including sexual abuse, in the Diocese of Sosnowiec. He is also an editor of the Plus-Minus weekend supplement of the Rzeczpospolita daily.
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