Archbishop Scicluna to visit Poland amid abuse crisis

Archbishop Scicluna

Source: Vatican Media/ICN

The Bishops of Poland have invited Archbishop Charles Scicluna to hold a study day with them on the protection of young people and children.

His visit comes amid public outcry over a Youtube documentary on clerical abuse in Poland.

The film 'Tell No One', which has been watched by nearly 20 million people since Youtube released it last Saturday, also alleges that the Polish Church moved known paedophile priests from parish to parish, as happened in other countries.

Campaigners have called for the police to launch criminal investigations and the nationalist-conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has close links to the Church, announced plans on Tuesday to tighten sentences for child sex abuse.

The head of the Polish Bishops Conference, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, has called an extraordinary meeting of bishops to discuss the issue.

The abuse scandals in the Polish Catholic Church are a challenge to PiS as it prepares for the European elections next week and national polls later this year.

The Guardian reports that the Church in Poland has filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking to annul a one million zloty (€232,000) payment ordered by a lower court to a woman who, as a 13-year-old child, was repeatedly raped by her local priest.

"The Apostolic Nuncio to Poland, Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, has expressed the closeness and solidarity of the Holy Father towards victims of abuse," Alessandro Gisotti from the Vatican Press Office told reporters today.

Archbishop Scicluna, Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is set to visit Poland in June. The study day on the protection of minors will take place during the Plenary Assembly of the Polish Bishops' Conference, on 13 June, in Swidnica.

Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno, told a TV program on Thursday that the revelations will help to cleanse the Church, and has apologised to victims. "If the Church is currently going through difficulties, serious challenges, even a crisis, they all serve the Church's cleansing," he told TVN24.

Canadian-born Archbishop Scicluna has been Archbishop of Malta since 2015 and held positions in the Roman Curia. Both as a bishop and a curial official he has conducted investigations in sexual abuse by clergy on behalf of the Holy See, and led a Vatican board that reviews such cases. He has been called 'The Vatican's most respected sex crimes expert.'

Watch 'Tell No One' here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrUvQ3W3nV4