The Vatican announced on Tuesday the resignation of a Polish bishop in charge of a diocese in southern Poland involved in a scandal surrounding a sexual orgy organized by a priest.
The statement published by the Vatican is limited to this “The Holy Father accepted the resignation of the pastoral government of the Diocese of Sosnowiec [sul da Polónia] presented by His Excellency D. Grzegorz Kaszak”, without providing a specific explanation for this decision.
However, Polish media remember the latest scandal that happened in September in Dabrowa Gornicza, Sosnowiec diocese, where one of the priests organized an orgy in his parish by inviting a prostitute.
The case came to light because the invited man lost consciousness during the night and it was necessary to seek medical attention, allegedly after overdosing on erection pills.
The diocese, which identified the priest involved in the alleged orgy as Father Tomasz Z., largely confirmed the media reports and said an external investigative committee concluded that he “a very serious violation of moral standards”as well as his obligations as a priest.
Kaszak dismissed the priest from all duties on September 21 and initiated an internal canonical process, the outcome of which could lead to dismissal or laicization, according to a statement on the diocesan website.
The priest was not charged by Polish prosecutors, despite suspicions that he prevented paramedics from helping the prostitute.
Polish media cited a statement he released shortly after the scandal began, in which he denied preventing paramedics from entering his apartment and questioned the definition of an orgy.
“I consider this a clear attack on the Church, including the clergy and faithful, to humiliate their position, duties and mission.”the priest said in a statement he sent by ’email’ to the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
The media in Poland, Europe’s most Catholic country, occasionally cite two previous scandals that allegedly occurred in the same diocese of Sosnowiec.
The first concerns the director of a local seminary who was allegedly arrested red-handed while having sex in a “gay club,” and the other about a 46-year-old priest who allegedly murdered a deacon twenty years his junior , before examining himself. a roof, a train.
The Public Prosecution Service says that the two had had a conflictual relationship for some time and that the priest had sent threatening messages to the deacon, reports the Polish news agency PAP.
In a statement Tuesday, Kaszak said he asked the pope to let him resign in a Sept. 29 letter, in which he thanked the priests and nuns in his diocese and “asked everyone to forgive my human limitations.”
Kaszak, 75, was appointed bishop of Sosnowiec by then-Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 after briefly working at the Vatican Family Office.
The Polish Catholic Church has been rocked for years by allegations of sexual abuse of minors involving clergy, scandals that have led to the forced resignation of several bishops and damaged the institution’s reputation in the homeland of former Pope John Paul II .
The Vatican’s representation in Poland said a temporary administrator, Archbishop Adrian Galbas of Katowice, will lead the diocese of Sosnowiec until a new bishop is appointed.
Source: DN
