TV report: Future pope John Paul covered up child abuse while cardinal

WARSAW—The late Polish pope

John Paul II knew about child abuse in Poland’s Catholic church years before becoming pontiff and helped cover it up, private broadcaster TVN reported Sunday.

Michal Gutowski, the investigator behind the broadcast, said that Karol Wojtyla, as he then was, knew of cases of pedophile priests within the church while still a cardinal in Krakow.

He transferred the priests to other dioceses—one as far away as Austria—to ensure no scandal ensued, he said.

Wojtyla, who was pope for 27 years from 1978 until his death in 2005, wrote a letter of recommendation for a priest accused of abuse to Vienna cardinal Franz Koenig, without mentioning the accusations, says Gutowski. During his investiga - tion, Gutowski says he spoke to victims of pedophile priests, their families and former church diocese employees. He cites documents from the former Communist-era SB secret police and rare church documents to which he manages to get access.

But Gutowski said the Krakow diocese had refused him access to its own documentary archives.

The Polish church has in the past refused to provide documents to the judiciary or a public commission of enquiry investigating cases of church abuse of minors. Similar accusations

One of Gutowski’s sources said on condition of anonymity that he had personally told Wojtyla about acts of pedophilia concerning one priest in 1973.

“Wojtyla first wanted to make sure it wasn’t a bluff,” the source said.

“He asked it not be reported anywhere -- he said he would deal with it.” The then cardinal had explicitly requested the alleged affair be kept strictly under wraps, he added.

Thomas Doyle, an American former Catholic priest, canon law scholar, and the author of one of the first reports of Catholic clergy abuse in the United States, said Gutowski’s investigation was groundbreaking. AFP and cities.”

But on Saturday, the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) warned that Ukrainian supply routes to Bakhmut were narrowing.

“The Russians may have intended to encircle Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, but the Ukrainian command has signaled that it will likely withdraw rather than risk an encirclement,” it added.

Pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk region posted a video purporting to show Wagner fighters in the suburbs north of Bakhmut, having taken control of the Stupki railway station.

Wagner, a private army headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has taken center stage in the fight for the city, which has exposed rivalries with Russia’s conventional forces. AFP