POLAND’S POWERFUL ROMAN Catholic Church last Wednesday vowed “zero tolerance”
and apologised for paedophile priests amid public outrage over fresh
allegations and controversial remarks by its top cleric.
“We ask forgiveness for our priests who have harmed children,” Bishop
Wojeciech Polak, secretary general of the Polish Episcopate told
reporters, vowing “zero tolerance for paedophilia in the Church”.
Bishops gathered in Warsaw also said they had drawn up guidelines on
how to prevent child sex abuse, help victims and ensure that alleged
paedophile priests are served justice.
But despite the apology and guidelines, Church leaders in Poland
insist they will not be offering victims any material compensation.
Widespread public outcry forced Archbishop Jozef
Michalik — head of the Church in Poland — to apologise for and withdraw
his claim that children of divorced parents shared the blame for
paedophilia cases, including those involving Catholic priests.
Michalik initially said child sex abuse “manifests itself when a child is looking for love”.
“It (the child) clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then
draws another person into this”, he told reporters, adding abuse could
be avoided “given a healthy relationship between parents”.
The comments triggered caustic criticism on social networks from
mostly young Poles, some of whom feel increasingly disconnected from the
Church over its stand against abortion, gay marriage, test tube babies
and its failure to root out paedophiles from among the clergy.
“Michalik just wants to shift the blame for paedophilia from the
Church to someone else, whether it be divorced parents, or children
themselves, just to turn attention away from priests,” Facebook user
Daruisz L. Solomon commented on a post by the popular liberal-minded
Tygodnik Powszechny Catholic weekly magazine.
It termed Michalik’s comments “scandalous”.
Unlike the United States or Ireland, child sex abuse by priests in Poland has been a largely taboo subject, until this month.
The controversy and outrage, largely on the Internet and across the
media, marks the first time the issue of paedophilia in the Church has
sparked such high profile public debate.
Polish Church leaders were forced to make an unprecedented apology
late last month over paedophile priests, as prosecutors on both sides of
the Atlantic began probes against two high-profile suspects.