< /p> Prague Archbishop Jan Graubner.
Prague – Prague Archbishop Jan Graubner stood up for the late Pope John Paul II. Accusations that, as the Archbishop of Krakow, he covered up sexual abuse by priests, do not take into account the broader context, Graubner said in a statement on the website of the Czech Bishops' Conference, which he chairs. He mentioned the possible involvement of the Polish communist secret police. Graubner admitted that John Paul II. he may have made mistakes, but at the time, according to him, “social awareness and the usual ways of solving problems regarding sexual offenses were different”.
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Polish television TVN24 recently broadcast a report according to which John Paul II. during his tenure as the archbishop of Krakow, he knew that several priests under him abused children, and he tried to cover up their actions. It talks about three priests whom Karol Wojtyla, later Saint John Paul II, moved between parishes in the 1970s, sent to a monastery or to Austria when they were accused of abusing children. In response to the report last week, the Polish Sejm approved a resolution to defend the good name of John Paul II. The resolution, which talks about a “shameful media campaign” or efforts to “compromise the greatest Pole in history”, was submitted by the ruling PiS party.
According to Graubner, attempts to discredit the legacy of John Paul II. tendentious and ahistorical. “The authors of theses accusing Karol Wojtyła, as the then Archbishop of Krakow, of covering up sexual abuse by priests, do not take into account the wider context, but uncritically accept documents created by the secret police as credible sources, which is completely unacceptable, especially when there are other reports and studies that capture his words and actions differently,” he wrote.
Defend the sanctity of John Paul II. according to Graubner, it is not to say that he did not make any mistakes. “But we also have to realize that at that time different regulations applied not only in Poland than today, but also social awareness and the usual ways of solving problems regarding sexual crimes,” he said.
Just like in the communist In Czechoslovakia, as well as in Poland, the secret police worked to intentionally and permanently damage the church and created false information, the aim of which was to discredit and liquidate church officials, the Prague archbishop wrote. On the current attacks on John Paul II. according to him, former Polish communist representatives are also involved. “This political struggle, which took place in neighboring Poland, is an attack on our freedom as well, and we should unequivocally reject it and stand up for the legacy of the holy Polish Pope, who made a significant contribution to the fall of the communist dictatorship in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe,” he concluded .
Pontificate of Pope John Paul II. lasted more than a quarter of a century, he died in April 2005 at the age of 84. The world knew him as a defender of the rights of the weak and oppressed, but he was for communism for his native Poland. However, his strongly conservative views on homosexuality, euthanasia, contraception, abortion and the fight against AIDS caused sharp controversy.
