Even though this has been a monumental week in the pontificate of Pope Francis, marked by his "homecoming" visit to hispanic South America, another equally significant moment may come on Sunday in the Vatican itself when former papal Nuncio, Polish Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, goes on trial in a Vatican City State court on charges of paedophilia.
Papal Nuncio to the Dominican Republic from 2008 to 2013, Archbishop Wesolowski was laicized in a canon court hearing in Rome in June of last year in which he was found guilty of child sex abuse. The former nuncio had been accused of paedophilia in 2013 by a Dominican Republic TV channel which reported that he regularly frequented an area in Santa Domingo well known for child prostitution.
Just when it appeared that investigators both in the Dominican Republic and in his native Poland were preparing to file charges against him, he was hurriedly recalled to Rome in August 2013. In January 2014, in response to media reports that Poland wanted to extradite the Archbishop, Holy See spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi stated that as a Vatican City state citizen, he would first be tried in both Holy See (canonical) and Vatican City state courts. Furthermore, Fr Lombardi said that the Holy See, Poland and the Dominican Republic were co-operating in the Wesolowski investigation.
Reportedly involved in “incidents” involving not just minors but also Polish priests based in the Caribbean island, the former nuncio’s trial seems set to be a test case for just how far Pope Francis will push new accountability systems. The last time that the Vatican held a high-profile trial came in October 2012 when Pope Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, went on trial, accused of stealing and then leaking to the media confidential documents from the papal household.
The international echo of the scandal created by that trial, which ulitmately ended with Benedict granting Gabriele a full pardon after he had initially been sentenced to 18 months in prison, was one of the factors that prompted the cardinals to elect Pope Francis at the March 2013 conclave. On arrival in Rome for the conclave, several cardinals told reporters that the Gabriele case suggested that the Vatican Curia was in dire need of a general “clean up”.
Pope Francis’s “reform” mandate clearly applies to two issues above all, namely Vatican finances and clerical sex abuse. It is no coincidence that the former nuncio goes on trial thanks to a piece of legislation introduced by Francis himself in July 2013, when he ruled that all Vatican “public officials” were subject to Vatican City State criminal law (which now includes paedophile crime). For those purposes, the Pope decreed that “members, officials and personnel of the various organs of the Roman Curia” and “papal legates and diplomatic personnel of the Holy See” be considered “public officials”.
The Wesolowski trial is likely to run from now until the New Year and, if found guilty, the former Archbishop could face a five- to seven-year sentence. If he is not found guilty, the Holy See will once again find itself charged with a “cover-up”. The fact that the Vatican’s own canon law court obviously found him guilty of some serious misdoing last year would suggest, however, that the Vatican City State court will follow suit. The clercial sex abuse survivors’ lobby, and Pope Francis himself no doubt, will be watching closely.