High-ranking Vatican official ‘taken ill’ hours before start of child abuse trial

A former papal diplomat charged with the sexual abuse of boys has been admitted to hospital hours ahead of his trial at the Vatican. Jozef Wesolowski is being treated in intensive care as his trial was set to open on Saturday. The judge immediately adjourned the case to a later date. The 66-year-old faces charges that he sexually abused shoeshine boys in the Dominican Republic and possessed child pornography. The former Catholic archbishop’s trial was seen as a high-profile way for Pope Francis to make good on pledges to punish high-ranking churchmen involved in sex abuse of minors, either by molesting children or by systematically covering up for priests who did.

He definitely seduced me with money.

Former shoeshine boy Francis Aquino Aneury

Wesolowski, from Poland, was discretely recalled to the Vatican by Pope Francis in 2013 after allegations surfaced in an investigative TV programme in the Dominican Republic. In the programme, journalist Nuria Piera interviewed men who claimed they were abused by the archbishop. The programme also aired secretly filmed footage allegedly showing Wesolowski walking along a beachfront known to be used by child prostitutes. He was defrocked, or laicised, at a 'canonical’ or religious trial at the Vatican in late 2013 and spent 60 days under house arrest in Vatican City but was then released, with his movement restricted to within the city state.

It’s very important that they do this right and I’m pretty sure that the date was chosen so that there wasn’t a big media circus surrounding day one of the trial.

Robert Mickens, editor-in-chief of Catholic magazine Global Pulse

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