WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Contradicting claims by Poland's ruling party leader, the head of Poland's Catholic church says recent revelations about priests abusing minors are not attacks on the church but will help its cleansing.
Poland's primate, Archbishop Wojciech Polak, was referring to a documentary film, "Tell No One," that contains testimony by men and women that they were molested or raped by priests when they were children. Aired Saturday, it has provoked a heated public debate and a soul-searching in the church, which traditionally enjoys respect in predominantly Catholic Poland.
At a recent electoral campaign rally, the leader of Poland's ruling conservative party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said the church has been under attack lately from western values. He said "anyone who raises his hand against the church, wants to destroy it, raises his hand against Poland."
Speaking on private TVN24 late Thursday, Polak said he did not see any "hand raised against the church."
"If the church is currently going through difficulties, serious challenges, even a crisis, they all serve the church's cleansing," Polak said.
In March, church authorities said they had recorded cases of 382 clergymen who abused 625 victims under the age of 18 since 1990.
Reacting to the film, Poland's government and parliament have toughened the punishment for pedophilia, raising prison terms to 30 years from the current 12 years. The new law is expected to win approval from the Senate and President Andrzej Duda.
Opposition parties are also calling for an independent commission to investigate abuse of minors by the clergy.
The move against pedophilia, enacted in a matter of days, is seen as an attempt by the ruling Law and Justice party to gain support ahead of the May 26 election to the European Parliament and Poland's own parliamentary election in the fall.
But an EU Parliament lawmaker for the ruling party, Ryszard Legutko, drew strong criticism on social media for showing no compassion for victims and arguing that most abuse cases were on boys aged between 12 and 17, in which case they were pederasty, not pedophilia. He has refused to apologize.
Indeed Archbishop Polak is quite correct - there is no attack on the Catholic Church and the recent "revelations" will help its cleansing. We have a total four Archbishops in Ireland - ALL of whom have been the subject of "revelations". A number of "ordinary" Bishops have been the subject of similar "revelations" but the funny thing is that they were all very much in the public eye. It appears that Bishops who are NOT media friendly, are also not subject to such revelations. What a co-incidence!
I have a summary article on the subject on my blog IrishSalem.blogspot.com
"Eight Falsely Accused Bishops (and Archbishops) in Ireland"
http://irishsalem.blogspot.com/2018/07/seven-falsely-accused-bishops-and.html
I wonder is Poland any different?
For a SECULAR equivalent (in the UK) the Archbishop may wish to check the Wikipedia article "Operation Midland" as well as current media coverage of the trial of accuser Carl Beech who largely created it. As per Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midland
" Beech made false claims specifically against twelve people, including the former Members of Parliament Harvey Proctor and Greville Janner, the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, the former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Bramall, the former Director of the Secret Intelligence Service Maurice Oldfield, and the former Director-General of MI5 Michael Hanley."
The hysteria has spread downwards in both Ireland and the UK and every teacher, doctor, nurse, social worker etc who deals with children now has to take special precautions against false claims of child abuse. In Ireland the lunacy STARTED with attacks on the Catholic Church and I predict the same will happen in Poland. Note that in the UK the targets of the hysteria are nearly all Tory or "cultural Tory" (e.g. heads of Army and of MI5) - a kind of secular equivalent of the Catholic Church!