Archbishop on trial for paedophile crimes found dead in Vatican

The Holy See has announced that the controversial former papal nuncio, Archbishop Josef Wesolowski (67), on trial in the Vatican on charges of paedophile crime, was found dead in his lodgings this morning.

The Holy See said first indications suggested the Polish archbishop had died of natural causes. It added, however, that the promoter of justice (attorney general) had called for an immediate autopsy, the results of which will be made known “as soon as possible”.

Given he would have been the first senior Vatican official to stand trial on paedophile charges, the former papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic had become an internationally well-known figure.

Hurriedly recalled from Santo Domingo by Pope Francis in 2013, the archbishop was last year "reduced to the lay status" by a Vatican canonical court which found him guilty of systematic paedophile crime.

That canon law court hearing led to a second trial, this time held under the jurisdiction of the Vatican City state. That trial was due to begin in early July but it got off to a false start with the court having to immediately adjourn because the archbishop had taken ill on the eve of his trial.

At the time, the court said the archbishop had been taken to Rome’s Gemelli hospital where he had been detained in the intensive care unit. Vatican sources also said he had an ongoing heart condition.

Inevitably, the archbishop's sudden illness prompted much scepticism. Rome daily Il Fatto Quotidiano reported he had not been treated in intensive care but had arrived in the hospital in a "confused" state, having taken pills and alcohol.

On the opening day of his adjourned trial, the Holy See released details of the sex abuse charges brought against the archbishop. These related essentially to the abuse of minors during his five years (2008-2013) as papal nuncio, a period when, allegedly, he regularly frequented an area in Santa Domingo known for child prostitution.

The Vatican court had wanted to charge him with the “corruption of adolescents presumably between 13 and 16 years old, inducing them to commit libidinous acts with him and in his presence . . .”

Some of the initial allegations against the archbishop had come in a letter to church officials from a local deacon who had procured child victims for the ex-nuncio, allegedly picking up young shoeshine boys on the waterfront and paying them for sexual acts.

Furthermore, the public prosecutor’s office in Santo Domingo, which had been keen to extradite the archbishop, had accused him of bribing poor children for sex, offering money and, in one case, medicine to treat a child’s epilepsy. He also stood charged with “having procured and stored material from web sites showing minors involved in explicit sexual acts, real and simulated, as well as images of the sexual organs of minors, displayed for primarily sexual purposes.”

The archbishop had also been charged with possession of an “enormous quantity” of child porn on his computer, of having caused psychic damage to adolescents and of having offended Christian principles and morality. Had he been found guilty, he would most likely have faced up to a seven-year prison sentence.

Inevitably, there will be those who will wonder about the timing of the death as the trial would have provoked much bad publicity for the Holy See.