Poland's top Catholic cleric apologized Tuesday for suggesting
parents shared the blame for pedophilia cases, including those involving
Catholic priests, after a public outcry.Poland is one of Europe's most strongly Roman Catholic countries, but public loyalty to the church is weakening, particularly in the wake of a series of allegations of pedophilia involving priests.
Speaking to the Polish PAP news agency Tuesday, the head of Poland's Episcopate Archbishop Jozef Michalik condemned pedophile priests, but said "we often hear that this inappropriate attitude (pedophilia), or abuse, manifests itself when a child is looking for love" and could be avoided "given a healthy relationship between parents".
"It (the child) clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then draws another person into this," Michalik said.
While condemning pedophile priests "whom neither the Church nor anyone else can accept," Michalik also spoke out against divorce as being harmful to children.
"How many wounds are there in children's hearts, in children's lives, when their parents go their separate ways," Michalik told the PAP.
"Today nobody talks about divorce doing great harm to a child. It's obvious that sex abuse does great harm, one can't forget about it, but it's not the only thing" causing harm, he added.
Michalik later apologized and said he had been misunderstood, after the comments sparked a media storm.
"Often a person who is lost will take advantage of a child. The child doesn't have the power to draw a person into anything," he told reporters.
"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. A child is innocent."
Unlike the United States or Ireland, child sex abuse by priests in Poland remains a largely taboo subject and has not so far provoked widespread public outcry.
Nonetheless Poland's Catholic Church was expected to declare "zero tolerance" for pedophiles on Wednesday.
It issued an unprecedented apology earlier this month over alleged pedophile priests, as prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic began investigations against two high-profile suspects.
Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, a 65-year-old Pole who served as a papal envoy in the Dominican Republic's capital Santo Domingo for around five years, is being investigated for allegedly having sex with teenage boys
Authorities on the Caribbean island nation are also investigating Wojciech Gil, a 36-year-old priest suspected of raping several young boys while serving there.
Gil told Polish media last week the allegations were fabricated, pointing to Dominican drug gangs possibly trying to frame him.
Despite the apology, Church leaders in Poland insist they will not be offering any material compensation to a victim of a convicted pedophile priest.
A demand for 47,500 euros ($63,500) in damages was made by a 25-year-old male plaintiff, identified only Marcin K., who was molested as a child.
A Catholic priest was last year sentenced to two years behind bars in the case, but his diocese refused to be held financially liable.