KRAKOW, Poland (OSV News) — The primate of Poland who is an outspoken advocate of abuse victims was dismissed by the country’s bishops from his role as a leader of the team of experts preparing the ground for a much-needed independent commission that would investigate cases of abuse of minors by clergy from the past in the country.
The decision of the Polish bishops disappointed the victims for whom the move is a sign that the commission — in a new form and with a new leader — will lack teeth.
Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno is known for his longtime advocacy for victims of abuse and since 2019 has been a delegate of the bishops’ conference for child protection.
A Surprise Move
In a surprise move during the June 10-12 plenary meeting of the Polish bishops in Katowice — during the last debate for which some of the bishops did not stay as the vote was not a planned one — the bishops voted to replace Archbishop Polak with Bishop Slawomir Oder of Gliwice.
Reacting to the news, Jakub Pankowiak, survivor of clergy sexual abuse, told the Polish Catholic news agency KAI on Friday that he felt betrayed. The bishops did not want to set up a fully independent commission, “which we asked for,” Pankowiak said, although it had initially looked as if they would make progress together.
“My expectations were too naive,” he told KAI.
Cooperation With Survivors ‘Has Come to an End’
“Yesterday’s events mean that — at least from my point of view — the cooperation with the Polish bishops’ conference on this issue has come to an end,” said Pankowiak. In July 2024, together with more than 40 people affected by sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, he wrote an open letter to the bishops. He was then invited to the plenary assembly in November with other survivors.
“Everything indicates that the commission in its original form will simply not be established. I feel very disappointed, even betrayed,” he told KAI.
“In my opinion, the subject of this commission is closed,” he added. “Even if a new team is formed, it will no longer be the commission we asked for. I don’t know why, after two years of work by the primate’s team, another team is suddenly being appointed to prepare some documents. After all, as we know, the documents are ready,” he said.
Commission Announced in 2023
In March 2023, the Polish bishops’ conference announced it would form the commission. No members of the investigative commission have yet been appointed, but the rules of its operations have been fully established and were published by KAI agency June 13.
Hours earlier, Bishop Oder told the June 12 press conference after the plenary meeting ended that “the stage we are at now is the time to develop detailed documents that will organize the internal work of this committee.”
“It is about precision, both in legal wording and in the specific rules governing the functioning of this commission. We have experience shared with us by churches in other countries. We want to avoid mistakes that have been made elsewhere,” he said.
In March, Poland’s day of prayer for victims of clerical sexual abuse, scheduled each year for the first Friday in Lent, was overshadowed by a controversial opinion from the legal council of the Polish bishops’ conference regarding an independent commission.
Legal Council’s Criticisms
The legal council blasted several fundamental foundations of the commission, citing potential lawsuits and other risks for bishops that could come from the commission’s work; and took umbrage with the general guiding principles of the establishment of the commission. Bishop Oder is a member of the legal council who criticized the rules established by the primate’s team.
“It looks like the bishops’ conference lacks priorities,” a source close to the bishops’ conference who preferred to remain anonymous told OSV News.
“The biggest problem for the bishops is that the commission was aimed to be truly independent. Now those hopes are shadowed,” the source said.
“The big question throughout those two years of intense preparation was are we courageous enough to entrust the commission to lay experts? But now we know that the level of clerical thinking in the church in Poland is so high that we’re not capable of doing that.”
‘Burying Idea of Independent Commission’
The source added: “We are burying the idea of a truly independent commission for years. Maybe it will come back when the church in Poland is some kind of tiny flock that survived.”
He said that the best experts in the country were pulled in to advise Archbishop Polak on the establishment of the commission.
During the June 12 presser, Bishop Oder did not want to give a timetable for the next steps of its establishment.
Bishop Artur Ważny, who in June 2024 established Catholic Poland’s first independent diocesan investigation commission, told OSV News June 13 that while “small steps” were clearly made, and a clear “recourse” is now observed, he still wanted to pass on a message to survivors: “You are important, you are priority for us.”
Church Delayed Outreach to Survivors
He admitted that “the conversation” with abuse survivors “was delayed” by the church in Poland, “and now we see the consequences,” he said, referring to a groundbreaking meeting of the victims with the bishops in November 2024 — an encounter that happened over five years after the scandal broke full scale in the country in 2019.
“But this conversation has to finally lead to the truth,” he added with hope.
He said that it is possible to introduce good safeguarding initiatives — like the St. Joseph Foundation of the bishops’ conference, established in 2019 and financed by dioceses, that helps victims of abuse.
“At first, the bishops were reluctant towards the foundation, but then it became closer to them, and now most of the bishops really think it’s their own,” Bishop Ważny told OSV News. “Bishops were finally convinced it’s not a whip against the church, but something truly good.”
Hopes for an Independent Commission
He hoped a similar shift in an attitude toward the independent commission would happen.
“Personally, I see the importance and indispensable character of such independent commission,” Bishop Ważny told OSV News.
“The point is to reach out to those who have been hurt and are suffering in solitude. They may not see that the church cares about them, and this recent decision may cause them to hide even more.”
‘Want to Seek the Truth’
He said he wants them to hear from a bishop: “We want to be determined and seek the truth in order to find them and show them that they are in the heart of Jesus and in the heart of the church.”
Survivors however saw things more bitterly after the Katowice plenary meeting.
“Among the people I have spoken to, there is a prevailing feeling that we have been deceived and exploited. That everything we have done — we as victims, as well as the primate and his team — has been for nothing. Because when it came to real decisions, it turned out that the Polish bishops’ conference simply has no will to act,” Pankowiak concluded.
Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. KNA, German Catholic news agency, contributed to this report.
