- Title: VATICAN-TRIAL/MORNING Former Vatican ambassador goes on trial in child abuse case
- Date: 11th July 2015
- Summary: VATICAN (JULY 11, 2015) (REUTERS) ST. PETER'S SQUARE CUPOLA OF ST. PETER'S BASILICA TOURISTS TAKING PHOTOS OF ST. PETER'S SQUARE FAMILY IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE POLICE CAR IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) POOL JOURNALIST FROM ITALY'S OFFICIAL ANSA NEWS AGENCY, FAUSTO GASPARRONI, SAYING: "Wesolowski has already been removed from ministry and now faces several years
- Embargoed: 26th July 2015 13:00
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- Location: Haiti
- Country: Haiti
- Topics: General
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- Story Text: Jozef Wesolowski, a former archbishop and papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic, will go on trial on Saturday (July 11) accused of child sex offences in a case seen as a test of Pope Francis's drive to clean up the church.
It will be the first trial held under rules drawn up by the Argentinean pontiff in an effort to make the clergy accountable for their actions around the world and show that the Vatican is sensitive to widespread anger over repeated abuse scandals.
The 66-year-old former Polish archbishop was "apostolic nuncio", or Vatican ambassador, in Santo Domingo for five years and was recalled to Rome in 2013 after local media accused him of paying boys to perform sexual acts.
The pope ordered a criminal investigation and he was arrested last September and detained in the Vatican -- the first arrest in the tiny city state related to paedophilia charges.
After his arrest, Vatican inspectors found child pornographic material on his computer.
Wesolowski has already been defrocked by a Vatican tribunal, a rare occurrence and a sign of how seriously the church has taken the accusations against him.
He faces up to eight years in jail if found guilty of abusing a minor and two years for possession of child pornography. Such a sentence would almost certainly be served in Italy rather than the Vatican. Officials have also suggested he could be extradited to the Dominican Republic or Poland.
"Wesolowski has already been removed from ministry and now faces several years in prison. What we expect from the trial is to see the accusations against him to be verified and also to see a signal from the Church that it really wants a clean up within," said Fausto Gasparroni, a journalist from Italy's official Ansa news agency who is part of the pool of reporters allowed inside the court room.
Looking to restore the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church following a wave of sexual scandals around the world, Francis ruled in 2013 that the Vatican's criminal code could be applied to its employees wherever they lived.
In June, he also approved the creation of an unprecedented Vatican tribunal to judge bishops accused of covering up or failing to prevent sexual abuse of minors.
"One of the things you have to emphasize is that this is someone very different from any other bishop, this is not the bishop of San Francisco, the archbishop of Milwaukee; this is somebody who is a direct representative of the pope. Bishops in dioceses are not representatives of the pope, they are by divine right, they represent Christ in the dioceses. This is the papal envoy, representative and that is why this case is so important, this is not just some other bishop, this comes directly under, this is the right hand of the pope, the bishop of Rome, that makes this particularly important. And the other thing we need to underline is that this man who is on trial is very closely linked to Saint John Paul II. He was ordained a priest by him in 1972 when the late pope was archbishop of Krakow and he was made a bishop and ordained a bishop by John Paul II here in Rome in the year 2000. John Paul II's record on dealing with sexual abuse is very murky and very much under scrutiny. This case does not help," explained long-time Vatican journalist Robert Mickens, editor-in-chief of the Catholic magazine "Global Pulse", ahead of the trial.
While groups representing victims of priestly abuse have welcomed the Wesolowski trial, they have said much more needs to be done to clean up the Church and root out wrongdoers.
One group, BishopAccountability.org, says 79 bishops have been accused publicly of sexual wrongdoing, and only four have been defrocked.
The pope was not in the Vatican as Wesolowski's trial opened. He is visiting three South American countries and has taken much of the Vatican media pack with him.
A Vatican official said Saturday's hearing was expected to be taken up by procedural matters, adding that the trial was likely to continue for several months. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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