Mons. Stanislaw Gądecki, President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, has described a “biased evaluation” in a TV report that accuses Saint John Paul II of having covered up abuses against minors by priests when he was Archbishop of Krakow.

“It is surprising that attempts are being made to discredit John Paul II himself and his legacy, all in the name of concern for truth and good”, Mons. Gądecki lamented in a statement released on 9 March.

The Archbishop of Krakow also stated that “the authors of the discrediting opinions have presented a biased and often ahistorical evaluation of Karol Wojtyla, without taking into account the broader context and uncritically accepting as credible the documents created by the secret police”.

The report, aired on 6 March by the Polish channel TVN, based on records from the intelligence service and the communist secret police (SB), accuses John Paul II of allegedly covering up cases of child sexual abuse by priests.

The accusations point to the years when Karol Wojtyla led the Archdiocese of Krakow, before becoming Pope. The Polish media accused Wojtyla of transferring priests to new parishes despite allegedly being aware of abuse allegations.

Mons. Gądecki regretted that the investigators did not take into account “existing reports and studies that credibly depict” the “words and deeds” of Saint John Paul II.

“The members of the Permanent Council of the Polish Episcopal Conference have already emphasized once (18 November 2022) that the media attack on Cardinal Karol Wojtyla and then on the Polish Pope and his pontificate has deeper causes,” he underlined.

The Three Accusations

Two of the cases cited in the TVN report involve priests Eugeniusz Surgent and Jozef Loranc. Both complaints had already come to light on 2 December 2022 and were refuted that same month by two Polish investigative journalists.

Reporters Tomasz Krzyżak and Piotr Litka found that Saint John Paul II did not cover up any abuse and acted consistently against the cases mentioned during his time as Archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978.

Fr. Adam Zak and Fr. Piotr Studnicki, responsible for the protection of minors and the vulnerable and assistance to victims of sexual abuse in the Church in Poland, issued a joint statement on 7 March referring to both cases.

The journalistic work “was based mainly on an analysis of the available state criminal proceedings files in the archives of the Institute of National Remembrance. The findings have already been widely reported,” they said.

The TVN report adds a third case of alleged cover-up of Fr. Boleslaw Saduś, which had not been mentioned in previous reports. According to the report, Archbishop Wojtyla knew that Saduś was accused of sexually abusing young children but recommended him to a diocese in Austria to be transferred.

The joint statement of Frs. Zak and Studnicki clarifies that this third case “was not presented on the basis of procedural or judicial investigation, but from the archives of the security services of the People's Republic of Poland,” the communist regime that fell in 1989.

“Based on the sources presented in the report, it is impossible to determine the qualification of the acts attributed to Fr. Saduś. It is worth remembering that, according to Canon Law of the time, absolute protection was granted to persons under the age of 16, and not, as now, since 2001, to minors under 18,” both priests pointed out.

In conclusion, they stated that "further archival research" is needed to "determine the role and a fair evaluation of the decisions and actions" of Karol Wojtyła.

Polish Episcopate calls for the defense of the legacy of John Paul II

Mons. Gądecki, President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, urged on March 9 "all people of good will not to destroy the common good, which undoubtedly includes the legacy of John Paul II," whom he considers "a master of faith and an intercessor in heaven."

"The defense of the sanctity and greatness of John Paul II does not mean asserting that he could not make mistakes. Being a shepherd of the Church in an era of division of Europe into the West and the Soviet bloc meant having to face great challenges," he explained.

The Prelate added that it should also be considered that "at that time, not only in Poland, the regulations were different from those of today, as were social consciousness and customary ways of solving problems."

He also recalled that "since John Paul II's decision, the Church has made a great effort to establish structures and develop unequivocal procedures to ensure the safety of children and young people," as well as "to properly punish the perpetrators of sexual crimes and, above all, to provide assistance to victims."

"By issuing the document Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela for the whole Church, recognizing the harm done to a child in the sexual sphere as one of the most serious crimes, John Paul II obliged all the world's episcopal conferences to introduce detailed codes of conduct in such cases. This was indeed an unprecedented revolutionary decision," he emphasized.

Archbishop of Poznań, Mons. Marek Jędraszewski, also spoke out about the accusations against Saint John Paul II in a homily on March 7.

"John Paul II remains an enemy to those who spread the ideology of gender, supporters of abortion and euthanasia, so they try to destroy him, undermine his authority, and mock his holy name," he exclaimed.

In that sense, he acknowledged that the Polish Pope was a clear "defender of man, protector of marriage and family."

Finally, Mons. Jędraszewski addressed his compatriots to ask them to "fight with prayer."

Karol Wojtyła served as Archbishop of Krakow from 1964 until 1978, when he became Pope John Paul II. He died in 2005 and was canonized in 2014.