In recent times, the Roman Catholic Church had to endure several embarrassing and shocking actions of its clergy, and now in Poland, the Catholic Church is facing allegations of mass sexual abuse committed by clergy that involves minor children.
According to the reports, published in New York Times, the Catholic Church of Poland has been accused of covering up crimes of sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy which has been the standard operating procedure all over the world.
However, on Monday (June 28) the Church acknowledged that it had received complaints of abuse from 368 boys and girls in the last three years.
Immediately after admitting of a massive coverup, the Polish church’s Archbishop Wojciech Polak, pleaded for forgiveness from “those wronged and all those shocked by the evil in the church”.
He said the figures did not express the full depth of the crimes of sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by some clergymen as most of the victims are under age 15.
“I would like to address all those who have been wronged and scandalised by the evil in the church. I would like to ask for forgiveness once again,” said Wojciech Polak, the Archbishop of Gniezno.
Nearly 75% of the complaints reported on Monday were related to abuse incidents before 2018, with some dating back to 1958.
So far 39% of the complaints have been found to be true as investigations are being carried out to look into the remaining cases.
For the Vatican, these are difficult times as every time a cases of sexual abuse emerge out of the pulpit, there is an obvious case of a coverup.
The Vatican has now launched its own investigation of sex crimes committed by its own clergy as in the case of Stanislaw Dziwisz, who served as Archbishop of Krakow from 2005-2016 who covered paedophilia allegations.
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