A former archbishop and papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic fell ill and was taken to an intensive care unit ahead of the planned opening of his trial yesterday for alleged child sex offenses, a Vatican official said.
The official gave no further information.
Polish former archbishop and ex-Vatican ambassador to Santo Domingo Jozef Wesolowski is accused of paying boys to perform sexual acts and of downloading indecent images of children.
He is the first high-ranking Roman Catholic official to stand trial in the Vatican on sex abuse charges.
The case is seen as an important test of Pope Francis’ drive to clean up the Catholic Church.
Francis has rewritten regulations, opening the way for Wesolowski’s trial.
Wesolowski, 66, was recalled to Rome in 2013 when accusations first surfaced; Francis ordered a criminal investigation that led to his arrest in September last year.
He was already defrocked by a Vatican tribunal.
Wesolowski faces up to eight years in prison if found guilty of abusing a minor and two years for possession of child pornography.
The sentence would likely be served in Italy. Officials have also said that he could be extradited to the Dominican Republic or Poland.
Francis ruled in 2013 that the Vatican’s criminal code could be applied to its employees wherever they lived.
Last month, he approved the creation of an unprecedented Vatican tribunal to judge bishops accused of covering up — or failing to prevent — sexual abuse of minors.
While groups representing people who have been abused by priests welcomed the Wesolowski trial, they said that much more needs to be done to clean up the church and root out wrongdoers.
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