As we reported earlier, on Monday 6 March, the private broadcaster TVN24 aired a report alleging that Karol Wojtyła - then Bishop of Kraków, later Pope John Paul II - was aware of cases of paedophilia among priests in the 1970s and facilitated the transfer or even emigration of the accused.
Several MPs declared support for a resolution "to defend the good name of St. John Paul II" and Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki added his voice:
"Unfortunately there are groups that are trying to wage not military but civilisational war on us, in Poland [...] Evidence that John Paul II took up the fight against wickedness, including in the Church, is plentiful. There is no evidence, or very, very doubtful (evidence) that he ignored such acts."
Critics of TVN24 have particularly focussed on its use of communist secret service documents.
Other Catholic opinions have expressed criticism, though moderate, of the Church's response to child abuse and John Paul II's legacy. The Polish Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic priest, author and activist, Tadeusz Bohdan Isakowicz-Zaleski has given an interview for the radio station RMF24 in which he sums up John Paul II as a "great human-being" but "flawed".
Father Isakowicz-Zaleski is well known in Poland as a supporter of vetting ("lustracja") of public figures, including the Church - a movement aiming to rid public life of its perceived communist influence. In the interview for RMF24, however, he also disclosed his own efforts to expose cases of paedophilia and attempted cover-ups in the Church. He says he hit a "wall" of resistance from within the Church.
Tomasz Terlikowski, a Catholic journalist who appears in the TVN24 report, was stronger in his condemnation. He says that even if John Paul II was "in many matters much more intelligent, much more sensitive, much more empathetic", in his responses to child abuse scandals he followed the same pattern of behaviour as most bishops in the Church. Terlikowski says this response was to prioritise "the institution", even including the priest accused of paedophilia, above the victim.
However, both Terlikowski and Isakowicz-Zaleski emphasize that in the 1970s, society as a whole was not as sensitive to the crime of paedophilia as today. Documents, including the secret service documents invoked by TVN24, refer vaguely to a "priest with a weakness for children"; or a suspect priest would have been referred to as a "sinner" in conversation.
Sources: PAP, RMF24, TVN24
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