A Vatican investigation into allegations that St. John Paul II’s longtime top aide was negligent in handling sex abuse claims in his native Poland has cleared him of wrongdoing.
Newsroom (23/04/2022 7:00 PM Gaudium Press) The Vatican ended an investigation into allegations that Polish Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz failed to investigate claims of clerical sex abuse when he was archbishop of Krakow, saying his actions were “correct.”
“The analysis of the collected documentation made it possible to assess these actions of Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz as correct and, therefore, the Holy See decided not to proceed any further,” the apostolic nunciature in Poland announced on Friday.
Cardinal Dziwisz, 82, was archbishop of Krakow from 2005 to 2016, after more than three decades as the personal secretary of St. Pope John Paul II.
The Vatican sent Italian Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco to Poland in June 2021 to gather evidence and documentation into allegations of negligence while Dziwisz was archbishop of Krakow, Poland, from 2005 to 2016. A priest had said he gave Dziwisz a letter detailing allegations of abuse against another priest, and the presumed victim said he never heard back about what came of the case.
Bagnasco’s investigation did not consider Dziwisz’s tenure while he was at the Vatican and the private secretary to John Paul, who was pope from 1978 to 2005.
Cardinal Dziwisz, in his statement on April 22, said he is “grateful to the Apostolic See for having judged the case fairly.”
Cardinal Bagnasco, he said, “made every effort to clarify the aforementioned allegations, which are undeserved and painful for me.”
The cardinal added that he hopes the news “will contribute not only to clarifying the matter but also to restoring peace of mind to all those who have felt affected by the accusations I have faced.”
“I assure everyone of my remembrance in prayer,” he stated, noting that he is grateful to those who contributed “to a responsible response to the allegations made against me during my time as Archbishop Metropolitan of Krakow from 2005 to 2016.”
The allegations against the Polish cardinal were aired in a television program in Poland in November 2020. The 82-minute program was shown on TVN24, a Polish commercial news channel, on the eve of the publication of the Vatican’s McCarrick Report.
Cardinal Dziwisz said in 2020, he wanted to see the allegations clarified in a transparent manner.
In Poland, the Catholic Church has been undergoing a reckoning on clerical sexual abuse for several years. In 2019, the Polish bishops’ conference issued a report concluding that 382 clergy sexually abused 624 victims between 1990 and 2018.
Cardinal Dziwisz was ordained a priest in 1963 by St. John Paul II, who was then an auxiliary bishop of Krakow. When Bishop Karol Wojtyla was made archbishop of Krakow the following year, Cardinal Dziwisz became his secretary — a role he served in until the pope died in 2005.
After John Paul died in 2005, Dziwisz was appointed archbishop of Krakow in southern Poland. He had served as secretary to Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future pope before they moved to the Vatican.
Pope Benedict XVI made Dziwisz a cardinal in 2006.
(Via Associated Press and National Catholic Register)
Compiled by Raju Hasmukh
