The Vatican announced on Tuesday the resignation of a Polish bishop responsible for a diocese in the south of the country which had attracted the attention of the media with a case of sexual orgy organized by a priest.
The press release published by the Vatican limits itself to saying that “the Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral governance of the diocese of Sosnowiec presented by His Excellency Mgr Grzegorz Kaszak”, without giving any particular explanation for this decision.
Scandal after scandal
However, the Polish media are recalling on this occasion the latest scandal that occurred in September in Dabrowa Gornicza, in the diocese of Sosnowiec, where one of the priests organized an orgy in his parish, inviting a prostitute. The affair exploded when the man invited lost consciousness during the evening and emergency services had to be called.
“Father Tomasz Z. and two lay people committed a very serious violation of moral standards, which the Church does not tolerate and strongly condemns. The incident has become a cause of great scandal for the faithful and of justified public indignation,” we could read shortly after on the official website of the diocese.
Leader of the diocese since 2009
For his part, by announcing his resignation on Tuesday, Bishop Kaszak asked his flock to “forgive” him for his “human weaknesses”. The media in Poland, a country of Catholic tradition, occasionally cite two previous scandals which allegedly took place in the same diocese of Sosnowiec.
In the first case, the director of a local seminary who was allegedly arrested in flagrante delicto while having sex in a gay club, and in the other, a 46-year-old priest who allegedly killed a 26-year-old deacon years, before throwing himself under a train. Ordained bishop in 1989, Mgr Kaszak has led the diocese of Sosnowiec since 2009.