Landmark conviction for Polish bishop over failure to report child abuse

A Catholic bishop in Poland has been convicted for failing to report two paedophile priests in his diocese to the police.

In a first for the country, a regional court found that bishop Andrzej Jeż of Tarnów, southern Poland, was aware of complaints against two paedophile priests, named only as “Stanisław P” and “Tomasz K” under Polish privacy laws.

Prosecutors established that Stanisław P had harmed at least 95 children and committed “sexual acts” over decades in various parishes in Poland and Ukraine.

They were unable to proceed as the statute of limitations on his alleged crimes had elapsed.

Prosecutors brought charges of sexual abuse of minors against a second priest, Tomasz K, in 2023 but have failed to proceed with a trial due to the priest’s ill health.

The material collected in both cases led prosecutors to charge Jeż under a Polish law from 2017 that makes it a crime not to inform authorities immediately of “credible information” related to certain crimes, including sexual abuse of minors.

In the case of Stanisław P, the priest was defrocked by the Polish Catholic church in 2013, at least a decade after the first complaints.

But Jeż informed the prosecutors’ office of this priest only in 2020 – and a year later in the case of Tomasz K.

Jeż, who has served as bishop of Tarnów since 2012, insisted he reported to Rome all allegations as he received them but that “papal secrecy” provisions in canon law prevented him going to the authorities.

“If I had made the documents available to the authorities before sending them to the Vatican,” he told the court, “I would have lost my position.”

The court dismissed this argument as contradicting remarks by the late pope Francis. The court added that the bishop’s testimony “lacked credibility” and said the obligation to report suspected paedophilia, on Polish statute books since July 2017, was also binding on him.

In a statement, the diocese of Tarnow said it took a “zero tolerance” approach to sexual abuse of minors and that the bishop had “diligently performed his duties and took all necessary steps” under both church and state law.

It said Jeż only gained “concrete knowledge” of Stanisław P’s case in 2019 after obtaining documents related to his time in Ukraine.

It added that one of that priest’s alleged victims had gone to Polish prosecutors with their complaint in 2010, thus state authorities were long aware of the priest.

Previous sexual abuse cases against Polish clerics have either never come to court or ended with out-of-court settlements.

Prosecutors had sought a 10-month suspended prison sentence but instead the court ordered the Catholic church to deduct 25 per cent of his 4,000 zl (€911) monthly salary for two years, and to donate the proceeds to a Polish children’s charity.

After the eight-month trial ended on Thursday with the first-ever conviction of a Polish bishop, Jeż announced he will launch an appeal.