Journalists Contradict Allegations of ‘Cover Up’ Against John Paul II Before He Was Pope

[Michie]

The reporters point out that the priest in question, Father Surgent, was not from the Archdiocese of Krakow but from the Diocese of Lubaczów.

VATICAN CITY — Journalists investigating secular and Catholic Church sources in Poland have called into question allegations by a Dutch writer that St. John Paul II “covered up” sexual abuse while still a bishop in Poland.

On Dec. 2, Ekke Overbeek, a journalist from the Netherlands living in Poland, said he had found “concrete cases of priests abusing children in the Archdiocese of Krakow, where the future pope was archbishop. The future pope knew about it and transferred them anyway, which led to new victims.”

Overbeek referred to the case of the priest Eugeniusz Surgent and “many others” whom Karol Wojtyla allegedly “covered up.”

The Dutch publication NOS, in which Overbeek’s statements appeared, reported the journalist spent three years combing “Polish archives.”

“Almost all documents collected directly about Wojtyla have been destroyed. However, in other surviving documents, he is mentioned very often. And if you put them all together, they are pieces of a puzzle that give a picture of how he dealt with it,” the writer stated, without saying which archives he was referring to.

Polish journalists Tomasz Krzyżak and Piotr Litka of Rzeczpospolita published an investigation that countered Overbeek’s accusations, stating St. John Paul II did not cover up any abuse and consistently acted against such cases during his time as archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978.

Continued below.

Journalists Contradict Allegations of ‘Cover Up’ Against John Paul II Before He Was Pope

The reporters point out that the priest in question, Father Surgent, was not from the Archdiocese of Krakow but from the Diocese of Lubaczów.

www.ncregister.com

 

[narnia59]

I don't know how accurate this is, but I heard someone make the claim on Catholic radio one time that JPII had to deal with the Communist party that would pay people to make a false accusation against a priest. So he always had to live in a world knowing an accusation was very likely to be false while balancing the less likely possibility it was true. It seems reasonable knowing how the Communists have operated against the Church and would certainly have made it more difficult to navigate those waters even with the right intentions.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I don't know how accurate this is, but I heard someone make the claim on Catholic radio one time that JPII had to deal with the Communist party that would pay people to make a false accusation against a priest. So he always had to live in a world knowing an accusation was very likely to be false while balancing the less likely possibility it was true. It seems reasonable knowing how the Communists have operated against the Church and would certainly have made it more difficult to navigate those waters even with the right intentions.

I have heard similar. Also that he just didn't think that a priest could be so terrible that he would ever do such evil.

 

[jamiec]

ISTM the whole thing needs to be investigated thoroughly, so that, whatever the facts may be, they can be established as fully and fairly and truthfully and accurately as possible. No matter what the consequences may be. The Church does not to be accused of any more cover-ups. Only the facts of the matter will do. The whole thing proves - what was blindingly obvious at the time - that the man's cause for canonisation was pushed through with reckless haste. It was too like the hysteria in the UK after Princess Di was killed in 1997. Catholics do not deserve to be lumbered with such atrocious incompetence & blithering ineptitude from the Vatican.

 

[narnia59]

ISTM the whole thing needs to be investigated thoroughly, so that, whatever the facts may be, they can be established as fully and fairly and truthfully and accurately as possible. No matter what the consequences may be. The Church does not to be accused of any more cover-ups. Only the facts of the matter will do. The whole thing proves - what was blindingly obvious at the time - that the man's cause for canonisation was pushed through with reckless haste. It was too like the hysteria in the UK after Princess Di was killed in 1997. Catholics do not deserve to be lumbered with such atrocious incompetence & blithering ineptitude from the Vatican.

Yes it should be investigated.

No, that doesn't call into question his canonization. The Church does not err in this regard.

Sainthood does not mean a person never made a mistake or an error in judgment. One of the things that gets lost in the witch-hunt mentality surrounding this topic is that there were both deliberate attempts to protect known perpetrators that knowingly put people in harm's way, and there were errors in judgment made without ill intent. Unfortunately the consequences can be devastating in either case. But attempting to paint all those involved with the same brush is also unjust. Yet that is where we've landed -- painting all involved with the same brush and rush to judgment to condemn without any room to understand all the factors involved and the intent at work.

It is quite possible than an honest error in judgment led to devasting consequences for a victim. From the victim's perspective it's certainly difficult to be able to process that, and that's understandable. But any honest evaluation of what happened has to process that. Yet it rarely happens.

 

[Michie]

Did Pope John Paul II Cover Up Abuse?

Recent accusations against Pope John Paul II revisit the difficult question of his actions in combatting the clerical sex abuse crisis.

www.crisismagazine.com