Vatican postpones Wesołowski paedophilia trial
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
11.07.2015 12:43
The trial of former nuncio Józef Wesołowski from Poland, on charges of paedophilia, has been postponed indefinitely after he was hospitalised prior to attending court on Saturday.
Former archbishop Wesołowski has been placed in intensive care.
He is a former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, and is accused of sexually abusing shoeshine boys with offers of large sums of money.
According to Francis Aquino Aneury a shoeshine boy who worked on the promenade in Santo Domingo, his friends would often see a man wearing a baseball cap drawn low over his head.
“He definitely seduced me with money,” Aquino Aneury told The New York Times in 2014, adding that the man was referred to as “the Italian” because he spoke Spanish with an Italian accent.
“The Italian” often offered the boys large sums of money in exchange for sexual acts.
“I felt very bad. I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I needed the money,” Aquino Aneury said.
Wesolowski was defrocked by the Vatican in late 2013, and his trial was meant to be the first time a high-ranking church official has faced a Vatican judge.
The trial of the 66-year-old Wesołowski was widely seen to set a new direction by the Vatican to prosecute a high-ranking member.
Pope Francis has regularly stressed that he will bring about a change from the previous pontiffs' inaction of sex scandals in the institution. (rg)