According to archival records supposedly discovered by a Dutch journalist stationed in Poland, Pope John Paul II was implicated in protecting priests who were allegedly engaged in child sex abuse while serving as an archbishop.
Between 1964 until 1978, the late Pope, as known as Karol Jozef Wojtyla, served as the archbishop of Krakow. According to Ekke Overbeek, he was aware of several priests in his diocese at the time who were charged with child molesting and who assisted in the concealment of their alleged crimes.
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Overbeek will describe the facts and findings from his three-year research in a book that will be published soon. The author delivered a summary of his findings to the Dutch television programme Nieuwsuur last week.
The journalist claims that while many of the records immediately relating to Archbishop and then Cardinal Wojtyla’s service in Krakow were destroyed, he was still able to build together a case against him using the records that did exist.
He said that Eugeniusz Surgent, a priest, was one of the alleged sexual abusers. A roommate’s knowledge revealed that Surgent had begged Wojtyla’s forgiveness and promised that “it would never happen again.” According to Overbeek, he broke his word.
The Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita published an investigation on Surgent in November after he was given a three-year prison sentence for assaulting six boys in the 1970s. The priest, who passed away in 2008, allegedly continued to abuse other people in the 1980s, yet his conviction for sexual assault never prevented him from serving as a priest.
The evidence gathered by Overbeek has been dubbed “explosive” by ordained Catholic priest Tom Doyle, who has dedicated his life to exposing the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
“It’s thorough and it’s true. It overturns the Pope’s former image,” he told the Dutch media. “He wasn’t part of the solution, he was part of the problem. He did nothing.”
In 2005, Pope John Paul II passed away. Pope Francis made the hurried decision to canonise his predecessor in 2014, according to some, including Overbeek.
Supporters of the late Pope asserted that he was unaware of child abuse occurring under his watch until the middle of the 1980s and even then thought the issue only affected American clergy, according to the journalist. The recent revelations “raise questions about his sainthood.”
