Three Men of God, Three Prisons

You know what? I have become smitten, utterly enraptured, with this disease, this chikungunya, because whatever responsibilities I might have had before? Gone! Vanished! My house resembles London immediately after the blitz—actually, London looked better; I have no sink but I do have a bucket—which happens to be blue, my favorite color, so I’m immediately cheered walking into the kitchen. Normally, of course, I might occasionally change the kitty litter—but if I can’t carry two bottles of wine and a package of chicken thighs home, what hope do I have for a 16-pound bag of kitty litter. So sorry, cats!

What have I discovered? Ah, the joys of illness, which provides me a perfect excuse not to do anything I don’t want to do! Damn, wish I had gotten this disease decades ago.

As a responsible blogger, read and feared in the most Olympian circles, I should really be telling you the story—ah, the old, old story—of Jozef Wesolowski, that 66-year old Papal Nuncio… Wait, former Papal Nuncio to the Dominican Republic, since he got defrocked and is now—horror of horrors!—under house arrest in Vatican City. So this is major news: yes indeed, our new pope is going to be a veritable lion, roaring his way through the naves and confessionals and parish houses of his church, seeking whom he may devour.

As they might say in the Vatican, merda taurorum.

Wesolowski was shuffled out of the country—one of two priests, both Polish, who were screwing (right, due to a howl from the legal department, I will add the word “allegedly” up there) young boys. Gentlemen—have you no imagination?

So one priest—who was going by the name of Alberto Gil, since his Polish name was completely daunting to Spanish tongues—ended up in Poland, where he sat around for months until the Poles, whose Spanish may be a bit rusty, decided they really should arrest him. What have they done with him since? Well, using my last ion of bloggerly energy, I looked him up on Google. And there’s nothing recent. So presumably, he is still “awaiting trial,” but who am I to say? In those distant days of salubrity—lump it, computer—I used to Google the Polish articles, and get wonderful, contorted but quite informative news on the gentleman. Oh, and I learned a lot about Polish syntax!

All of this is relatively out there—but what isn’t being said? Well—according to one report from, I believe, the Dominican journalist Nuria Piera—one or both of the guys may have slid out of the country on fake IDs.

The second thing? Wesolowski was Papal Nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and according to one report—again by Piera—he spent at least some time in Puerto Rico, where he stayed in a diocese currently being investigated by U.S. federal officials for sexual abuse of minors and the subsequent cover-up. (see below for a video—in Spanish—about his activities here.) So why is that a big deal?

Well, I just walked out to Plaza de Armas in Old San Juan, and peered up at the three flags that adorn the city hall. And here’s what I saw:

I wanted to make sure, you see, that that star-spangled banner was still waving over the land…OK, I’ll stop being cute. What am I saying? That I’ll bet anyone a good bottle of whiskey that Wesolowski committed crimes in US territory. So why aren’t we hauling Wesolowski over here for trial? Don’t think it can’t be done, because—ah my dear Google!:

The Vatican said Monday it had cooperated with U.S. law enforcement officials working to extradite an Indian priest charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota.

Given that Wesolowski is defrocked, how much of a problem would that be?

Right, so what else are we not being told? Well, we have one now-ex-priest under house arrest in Vatican City, we have another priest in protective custody in Poland, and is that all?

Nope, since absolutely nobody is mentioning a deacon called Francisco Javier Occi Reyes. Wait—Google again came through!:

SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - The Justice Ministry of the Dominican Republic on Sunday said it has evidence of pederasty against nuncio Józef Wesolowski, while a deacon has confessed to "pimping" minors for the senior prelate as well as of being his sexual partner, the website dominicantoday.com has reported.

Oh, and where is this guy? From the same website:

Mr Sanchez also said that a deacon, Francisco Javier Occi Reyes, who is being held in a Dominican jail on charges of paedophilia, said at the time of his arrest he was "pimping" a youngster for Wesolowski.

My final point? Good student that I was, I was trained—in every essay exam I took—to “compare and contrast” two or more elements. But here, I have to say that I’d fail miserably at contrasting the conditions of a Dominican Republic jail with a Vatican apartment. OK—the “contrast” I could do. But the “compare?”

I told myself at the beginning of this post that I didn’t have to do it, and that really, really, the charming alpha virus that has brought me this delicious disease has utterly freed me from tidying up the massive hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. And indeed, what I really was going to tell you about was that the last of the famous Mitford girls, who ended up as Duchess of Devonshire is dead. And since Deborah Cavendish (nee Mitford) had saved Chatsworth, shouldn’t I take an hour to watch a documentary about the house? So I did, and then promptly started out my post about the fascinating history of the family and the home!

Don’t bother—I know….

I’m outta control….