A court ordered the Diocese of Kielce in southern Poland to pay 550,000 złoty (£109,450) in compensation to a woman who was raped by a priest as a child.
Iwona Dudzik-Osińska, 57, who waived her right to anonymity, was first raped by the priest, identified as Fr Jan, in his rectory in Kielce in the summer of 1981 when she was 12 years old.
He later demanded she confess her sins. She said the sexual abuse continued for three years.
The district court in Kielce also ruled the priest, now aged 76, make a public admission of his guilt and apologise in the local newspaper Echo Dnia.
Ms Dudzik-Osińska reported the crime in 2007 but was told the statute of limitations had expired.
Following the broadcast of a widely-seen documentary on sex abuse in the Polish Church in 2019, Ms Dudzik-Osińska, called the “Wounded in the Church” helpline, a support network set up by lay Catholics from the Catholic Intelligentsia Club in Warsaw, the Catholic monthly Więż and the Dialogue psychological support foundation.
They helped her contact Church authorities to file a complaint and subsequently arranged to pay for four years of therapy for her and her daughter.
In 2023, an ecclesiastical court banned Fr Jan from publicly administering the sacraments and engaging in pastoral work, but did not laicise him.
Ms Dudzik-Osińska also launched a civil case against the priest. After four years, the district court in Kielce ruled the statute of limitations had not expired in the civil case and ordered the diocese pay the compensation.
“This is one of the first rulings of its kind in Poland, although it’s certainly not the first. It is part of an extremely important trend in case law that can offer hope to those sexually abused by clergy many years ago,” said Michał Sochański, a lawyer representing Ms Dudzik-Osińska.
“Justice may come very late, but this ruling demonstrates that it is not unattainable.”