St. John Paul II, circa 1992. / L'Osservatore Romano.CNA Newsroom, Dec 7, 2022 / 08:00 am (CNA).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.
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Pope John Paul II prays during a Mass in St. Peter s Basilica at the Vatican in 2003. (CNS photo by Alessia Giuliani, Catholic Press Photo)
CNA Staff, Dec 12, 2020 / 01:15 am (CNA).- Hundreds of professors have signed an appeal defending St. John Paul II following criticism of the Polish pope in the wake of the McCarrick Report.
The “unprecedented” appeal was signed by 1,700 professors based at Polish universities and research institutes. The signatories include Hanna Suchocka, Poland’s first female prime minister, former foreign minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld, physicists Andrzej Staruszkiewicz and Krzysztof Meissner, and film director Krzysztof Zanussi.
“An impressive long list of John Paul II’s merits and accomplishments is being challenged and erased today,” the professors said in the appeal.