The Nuncio Gets Away With It

I freely admit it: I’m out of control on the subject, though I had tried hard to rein myself in, since even I, a Norwegian-American, can summon up enough moral Nordic rectitude to deal with the Catholic church and its treatment of the sexual abuse scandals. At a certain point, there’s nothing more to say: Yes, the priests f…cked around and the bishops covered it up.

That said, the case of Józef Wesolowski certainly is unlike any other. You may remember, he was the papal nuncio for the Dominican Republic and the apostolic delegate for Puerto Rico, since one of the most crushing blows about not being an independent state is that we cannot have formal relations with the Vatican. Ouch—boys, that one really hurt!

Wesolowski showed complete lack of imagination in his sexual tastes, though it was shoeshine boys and not altar boys, but he was certainly industrious, since reports have that he had more almost 100,000 pornographic images on his computer. So on 21 August 2013, Wesolowski was recalled to the Vatican, as was another Polish priest, Wojciech Gil.

Well, that’s the official story. The unofficial story is that the archbishop of Santo Domingo was sufficiently alarmed at the press that was going to explode that he ran off to Rome and talked to Pope Francis, who recalled Wesolowski.

Can anyone believe that this pope is serious about the abuse scandal? Well, tell it to the numerous Romans who saw Wesolowski walking the streets of Rome, outside of Vatican City. Right, so when they got enough flak about that, they placed Wesolowski on house arrest, and then began the slow, tedious process of determining what to do with Wesolowski.

They did the only thing possible: They defrocked him. OK—here’s the catholicnews.com on the subject:

The Vatican announced in June that a canonical court had investigated Wesolowski on charges of sex abuse in the Dominican Republic and concluded by dismissing him from the clerical state, depriving him of all rights and duties associated with being a priest except the obligation of celibacy.

Guys? You’re expecting a man with a tenth of a million pornographic photos on his computer to be celibate? This creep is a predator with a major addiction to porn, and you think he’s gonna be celibate?

Right—so then it was a much-touted criminal trial, due to begin ten days ago. But Wesolowski’s lawyer walked into court, the morning of the first day of the trial, and announced that Wesolowski was in intensive care at a Rome hospital. Of course, of course, no one could say what ailed (or rather, what else ailed) the former papal nuncio, but remember, this is Rome, and those Italian tongue? They quite frequently wag.

So six days later, a Roman newspaper published a rumor of what I immediately suspected: The ex-prelate had arrived at the hospital confused and dazed from a mixture of alcohol and drugs. In short, Wesolowski was about to add the sin of suicide to the long list of others. So the trial was delayed, and then, three days after he was hospitalized, Wesolowski was released.

OK—it was eye rubbing, but was it worth writing about? Were we all just a little tired of it all? Yup, but I was still following the saga, when I came upon this:

The Vatican said in a June 15 statement that Wesołowski has been accused of a number of offenses, “some committed during his stay in Rome from August 2013 until the moment of his arrest, on Sept. 22, 2014.” Other offenses were allegedly committed when he was nuncio to the Dominican Republic and apostolic delegate to Puerto Rico, from 2008 to 2013, the Vatican said.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/illness-forces-postponement-of-former-nuncios-criminal-sexual-abuse-trial/#ixzz3gXmCAYnL   

OK—it’s clear: While being recalled by the Vatican for an investigation of sexual abuses, Wesolowski had continued his predatory behavior under Francis’s nose. But in the statement above, is the Vatican alleging that Wesolowski committed offenses here, in Puerto Rico?

OK—followed the link and got this, in Italian. Do I speak the language? Of course not, but anybody who has studied Latin, French and Spanish can figure it out:

La prima udienza del processo è fissata per il giorno 11 luglio 2015. All’ex Prelato vengono contestati taluni reati commessi sia durante il suo soggiorno a Roma dall’agosto 2013 sino al momento del suo arresto (avvenuto il 22 settembre 2014), sia nel periodo trascorso nella Repubblica Dominicana, nei cinque anni in cui ha ricoperto l’Ufficio di Nunzio Apostolico (il 24 gennaio 2008 era stato nominato Nunzio nella Repubblica Dominicana e delegato apostolico a Porto Rico, uffici da cui si è dimesso il 21 agosto 2013).

OK—so that Vatican is not alleging that Wesolowski committed crimes in Puerto Rico, but who is? Well, as you can see in the clip below, a number of the parishioners are: Wesolowski had visited the island frequently and had stayed in the parish of St. Martín de Porres, apparently as a guest of José Colón Otero, a priest who was removed after allegations of abuse…

…OK, the story is wacky enough to warrant its own paragraph. According to witnesses, boys were seen staying over at the parish house, and the next morning they were unable to look anybody in the eye. So the Vatican at last looked into it, and then defrocked Colón Otero. So what did the pope do, when the ex-priest appealed the decision? Partially reinstated him, since it could there wasn’t enough “moral certainty” to convict him of abuse, only of violating the sanctity of the confession.

What’s interesting about this case is what hasn’t happened, as much as what has. The Dominican Republic hasn’t requested Wesolowski’s extradition, perhaps because they don’t have a treaty that allows them to do so. But Poland requested extradition, and got turned down. The reason? Diplomatic immunity. But what about now, when Wesolowski has been defrocked? Presumably, that no longer applies; on the other hand, it might.

What else hasn’t happened? Well, the church has played a very old game: Out wait your enemies. And so the problems in the archdiocese of Arecibo, and the predation of a papal nuncio or an apostolic delegate or whoever he was have been completely forgotten, because everybody has just discovered that we owe some undetermined billions of dollars.

That’s one explanation. But the conspiracy theorist in me can’t help but wonder: The island is overwhelmingly Catholic, especially in the upper classes. The quiet word can be so very effective, when whispered in the right ear. I can only believe two things.

Wesolowski committed crimes on American soil, and…

…he’ll never pay for it.

Pop Quiz, Boys and Girls

Pop quiz, boys and girls. Get out your No. 2 pencils and get to work!

1.     The statement below is _______ true / ________false

The Vatican said Friday that Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent days, and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible against a cleric: laicization, meaning he can no longer perform priestly duties or present himself as a priest.

If you answered “true,” you got a zero on the quiz, but guess what? You’re also not alone. Here’s a sweet little description of “the harshest penalty possible against a cleric:”

Poor prisoners are called "ranas" or frogs. They sleep on the floor with mice and vermin around them. They have no private rooms or baths and they must use latrine-type holes in the jail patio and openly evacuate. These prisoners all shower together and fight for the last drop of water, while the goleta owners enjoy private baths. Every morning at about 9am there is a "conteo" or prisoner count where they are asked to walk out of the cells into the hallway to be counted.

Wesolowski was the papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and had the habit of strolling, beer in hand, the malecón and contracting the local boys to do you-know-what. And he was so open about it that the local news picked up on the story. Before he could be investigated and /or arrested, however, the archbishop of Santo Domingo went off to tell the pope that they had a little problem. The pope did what they always do: refused to turn the pedophile over to the civil authorities. Instead, for the last ten months, Wesolowski has been sitting in the Vatican, where he enjoys—or enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

So Wesolowski has two months to appeal the decision, and then faces a criminal trial in the Vatican. If convicted, he’ll be jailed there, presumably under conditions a bit more humane than the ones in Dominican Republic.

Isn’t it time to say it? The “state” of Vatican City is a joke—it not only is the smallest nation in the world, it also is just 108.7 acres, making it smaller than the average American farm. And I had assumed that the nationhood that everybody accords it was an ancient thing, from the times with the Vatican had real states. Wrong again—it dates from 1929.

OK, you say, so it’s bogus, but who cares? What difference does it make?

Well, for one thing, the Vatican denied the Dominican Republic’s extradition request, on the grounds that Wesolowski was a “citizen of Vatican City,” which has a policy of not extracting people.

There’s more. Allegations have been floating around the Internet that a common dodge for bishops is to give the files on abusive priests to the papal nuncio, since in several dioceses, victims of abuse have successfully sued to have the files made public.

And so Wesolowski may still have diplomatic immunity. What no one is saying is that he allegedly committed crimes, yes, in the Dominican Republic, but also here, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. And since the FBI, reportedly, is looking into the situation of priestly abuse, are they also looking at Wesolowski? Because Wesolowski made frequent trips to Puerto Rico, and stayed in the parish of a now defrocked priest, José Colón Otero. More, the parishioners were doing everything short of standing outside the church with cardboard placards, so desperate were they—the parishioners, not the placards—to get some church official to do something. They wrote to the bishop, then Wesolowski, and finally the Vatican. And what did Wesolowski do? Nothing.

There is something fishy going on in Arecibo. Consider the fact that the current bishop, Daniel Fernández Torres, is being investigated by the FBI for abuse. Oh, and he came out and said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had cleared him of the whole thing. But the lawyer representing the victim? She came out and said the Vatican never talked to her client.

Guys? It’s hard to know which is greater: the arrogance or the shamelessness.

Open Letter to Roberto González Nieves

(Note: this post was written several weeks ago. The most recent news is that Archbishop González Nieves is cooperating with the federal and local authorities. However, the diocese of Arecibo—which has been accused of being the “dumping ground” for abusive priests—is still fighting in court the subpoenas that have been issued against it….)
 

When are they going to get it?

What happens if I go out, take a shine to a 13-year old kid on the playground, offer him candy and the coolest tennis shoes (which his mother won’t buy him because she can’t) and then take him home and rape him? Well, the cops do an investigation, there’s a trial, and if convicted, I go to jail.

OK—what happened when a Catholic priest sexually abused a minor? Here’s what the archbishop of San Juan had to say:

“En una investigación preliminar el sacerdote admitió el abuso al entonces menor. Fue suspendido, quedando relevado de sus funciones ministeriales el 7 de septiembre de 2010. El día 30 de diciembre de 2011 el Tribunal Metropolitano culminó la investigación preliminar y el 4 de enero de 2012, el Tribunal Metropolitano remitió el expediente de este asunto a la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, dando cumplimiento al trámite requerido por el orden jurídico canónico”, aceptó González Nieves.

(“In a preliminary investigation, the priest admitted to the abuse of the (then) minor. He was suspended, being relieved of his ministerial duties on the 7^th of September of 2010. On the 30^th of December of 2011, the Metropolitan Tribunal (a church court) culminated its preliminary investigation and on the 4^th of 2012, the Metropolitan Tribunal submitted the file on this matter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, complying with the process of canonic law,” accepted González Nieves.)

Full disclosure: this quote comes from a blog called Cristianos Bíblicos, which attributes it and the whole post to an article in El Nuevo Día. A cursory search in El Nuevo Día’s website revealed no results for the title of the article, Dinero a cambio de silencio; víctima de violencia sexual en la iglesia católica en Puerto Rico.

Another disclaimer: from my reading of the paragraph, it’s not entirely clear whether the victim was a minor at the time she or he made the complaint, though it’s clear that the victim was a minor at the time of the abuse. And that’s important because, as Telemundo assures us,

De igual forma, González Nieves confirmó que la Iglesia no refiere a las Autoridades los casos de sacerdotes pedófilos si las víctimas ya son mayor de edad.   

(“As well, González Nieves confirmed that the church doesn’t refer to the authorities those cases of pedophile priests if the victims are currently of age.”)

OK—so let’s assume that the quote is indeed by González Nieves, the article did appear in El Nuevo Día, and that the victim was of age at the time of making the complaint. So what? The archdiocese has a sexual predator on its hands—one who has confessed to the crime, by the way, and for which it has taken the church over a year to “investigate”—and they don’t go to the cops? And weaseling out by saying that the victim is now of age is—however legal—questionable morally. If the priest abused some kid once, will he do it again? Very likely.

Oh, and remember this quote from my February 13, 2014 post (extracted from childwelfare.gov)?

Puerto Rico

P.R. Laws Ann. Tit. 8, § 446(b) (LexisNexis through Dec. 2009)     

Any person who has knowledge of or suspects that a minor is a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect shall report that fact through the hotline of the department, to the Puerto Rico police, or to the local office of the department.

True—it says “a minor.” But look, González—where’s your law degree? How do you know whether the statute of limitations has run out? Shouldn’t you let the District Attorney figure that out?

You know, González, we’re talking about a crime here. We’re talking about a trial, prison time, “rehabilitation.” And what have you done? You’ve completely usurped the civil authorities, taken off your sanctimonious robes, and turned yourself into the cops, the judge and the jury. And so you let a criminal go scot free—since the “priest” is no longer on the island and no longer a priest. I’m not a lawyer, either, González, but you know what I’d call it? Right—obstruction of justice.

Of course, there’s something else I’d call it: aiding and abetting a criminal. And by the way, did you have the perpetrator under 24 / 7 surveillance all that time? And I don’t care whether the victim was currently of age, because, guess what? Relieved or not of his priestly duties, he could well have been screwing little kids all during your yearlong investigation. He probably had more time to do it, in fact.

You know, I’m so frigging tired of the overwhelming, overweening, arrogance of the Catholic Church. I watched a guy, Colm O’Gorman, on YouTube yesterday describe his abuse at the hands of an Irish priest; I heard the story of how the priest made the fourteen-year old kid feel that it was his fault. I heard the story of how the kid left home before he was 18, and landed on the streets of Dublin: it was better than the abuse at home. And he pulled himself together, went on to make a good career, have a life. No thanks to your church, González.

So some guy on your payroll rapes a kid and you take off his collar and buy him a one-way ticket to somewhere. News flash, González:

The guy—very likely—is still raping kids out there.

Sleeping well these days, González?

Throw the Bishop in the Slammer

OK, let’s copy and paste from the website childwelfare.gov:

Puerto Rico
P.R. Laws Ann. Tit. 8, § 446(b) (LexisNexis through Dec. 2009)
Any person who has knowledge of or suspects that a minor is a victim of abuse, institutional abuse, neglect, and/or institutional neglect shall report that fact through the hotline of the department, to the Puerto Rico police, or to the local office of the department.

I bring you the above because the bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico went to court yesterday, and explained why he has been unable to provide nothing except five pages in response to a subpoena issued last week. And the reason? Well, he has an obligation to protect the confidentiality of the 20 victims, all of whom had chosen to go to the church, not to the civil authorities. Oh, and also, every one of those minors from the years spanning 2011 to the present is now magically an adult. So there was no obligation to report.

And the bishop goes farther, alleging that the state is intruding on the traditional and constitutional separation of church and state. So he’s asking for a preliminary and permanent injunction against the state.

Well, I can tell you all this because The New Day’s headline is shouting Colisión entre la Iglesia y el Estado—and yes, that means exactly what you think. So I plunked down the 54 cents to buy the print version of the paper, which would cover the affair more thoroughly than the electronic version. (For the electronic version, click here.)

What’s interesting about this situation is what people aren’t seeing. Yes, journalistic ethics demand that the church be given the chance to present their case. But why aren’t we asking the following questions?

1.     Why didn’t the bishop of Arecibo follow the Vatican’s protocol on reporting sexual abuse of minors to civil authorities? That protocol was contained in a letter of January of 2011. Here’s a direct quote:

Sexual abuse of minors is not just a canonical delict but also a crime prosecuted by civil law. Although relations with civil authority will differ in various countries, nevertheless it is important to cooperate with such authority within their responsibilities. Specifically, without prejudice to the sacramental internal forum, the prescriptions of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the designated authority should always be followed. This collaboration, moreover, not only concerns cases of abuse committed by clerics, but also those cases which involve religious or lay persons who function in ecclesiastical structures.

2.     Why didn’t the diocese of Arecibo release the names of the six priests who have been removed before the current scandal erupted?

3.     How much, if anything, has been paid to abuse victims in Puerto Rico?

4.     How many abuse victims are there in Puerto Rico?

5.     How many abusive priests have been removed?

6.     Lastly, what about the case of the papal nuncio, Jozef Wesolowski, who traveled to Puerto Rico during his investigation of archbishop Roberto González Nieves? As I quoted in a previous post, a Dominican news report alleges that the nuncio may have covered up priest abuse in the diocese of Arecibo. Here’s the quote:

Según los testimonios difundidos por Burgos, en su programa Código Calle, del canal 29 de Santiago, Wesolowski es acusado en Puerto Rico de encubrir a los sacerdotes pederastas.

Los fieles católicos se quejaron ante el obispo puertorriqueño monseñor Iñaqui [Sic.] y ante el propio Wesolowski, pero no recibieron el apoyo que esperaban.

Un seminario fue cerrado, pero todo se mantiene en silencio, y el obispo Iñaqui [Sic.] fue promovido, en lugar de ser sancionado. 

(“According to testimony of Burgos, in his program Código Calle, on channel 29 of Santiago, Wesolowski is accused in Puerto Rico of covering up pederast priests.

The Catholic faithful complained to bishop Iñaki and to Wesolowski as well, but never received the support they expected.

A seminary was closed, but everything was kept secret, and bishop Iñaki was promoted, instead of being sanctioned.”)

To my knowledge, Wesolowski is the first and only Vatican official who may have committed illegal acts in the United States. Does the Justice Department plan to subpoena the Vatican to determine what part, if any, Wesolowski played in covering up pederast priests?

It can’t be clearer, guys. The six priests who had committed abuse were criminals; the bishop had an obligation to report them. Instead, they were removed silently, and never faced the criminal sanctions they should have faced. Not only must the diocese of Arecibo hand over all their records to the district attorney, but the Department of Justice should be demanding that—at long last—the Vatican hand over all their internal documents as well.

I agree with one assertion that the diocese of Arecibo is claiming. By instigating their own investigation and sanctions of priests who had committed criminal acts, and by failing to notify civil authorities, the church had indeed…

…violated the separation of church and state.

Not Enough Rope

Well, being a bear of very little brain, it took me a while to realize that, even if I wasn’t particularly proficient in Polish (though I do know the word pederastia which is…), the computer is! And so all you have to do is hit the little “translate this page” and the computer, after some thought, will give you a charmingly literal translation. Here’s a nice sample:

In the Vatican's diplomatic career structures could envy him many a clergyman.

Got that? What could be clearer? Definitely better than this, the Polish homologue:

Kariery dyplomatycznej w watykańskich strukturach mógłby mu pozazdrościć niejeden duchowny.

OK, so the syntax is a little screwy, but if you can wait until the end of the sentence to figure out what we’re talking about—both grammatically and logically called the subject—all will be well. Think of it as a game, perhaps, or a linguistic who-done-it. Keeps you in suspense!

And so I realized, yesterday, that the Polish press, unlike the Dominican press, is playing up the story. And they are embellishing their articles with photos like this:

Yup, Wesolowski himself….

And so I spent an interesting afternoon in Poland, yesterday, learning that Padre Alberto Gil, a fellow Pole working in the little mountain town of Juncalito, had taken 3 trips to Poland with about ten boys each time. My first reaction, of course was, “yeah?”

I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend who had been sexually abused by a Baptist minister while his parents slept in the room next to the minister, who was “sharing” his bed with my friend. And Carlos, my friend, swears that in most cases, the mothers either know or suspect that abuse is going on. But why don’t they speak out? Is it fear? Is it a lifetime of poverty, which grinds in the lessons of helplessness and despair and futility?

At any rate, Gil made three trips to Poland with assorted kids—where did the money come from? I’ve been through towns in the Dominican Republic that must have been the equivalents of Juncalito—for all I know, I’ve been through Juncalito. Didn’t look like there’s much money there. And if there is, they hide it well.

So were the Poles sponsoring the trip? And where was that money coming from? How wonderful, those Poles welcoming with open arms (in how many senses, one wonders?) those cute Latin kids!

Even so, it’s a little hard to wrap my mind around the how a parent would allow a child to go off with a priest for over a month. But as I think of it, it makes more sense. First, of course, the parents must have been dazzled by the idea—Europe! My child’s going to Europe! The world is opening for him, who knows whom he could meet, what door could open for him! How wonderful that Padre Alberto….

Then, of course, there’s the reverence for the Catholic Church. Over eighty percent of Puerto Ricans are Catholic—what percent of Dominicans? Probably much higher. Watching videos of families affected by the abuse in Juncalito, I got a visceral sense of the betrayal these families suffered.

Lastly, maybe we should ask if the abuse in the church isn’t structural. The organization is set up in a way that fosters abuse. There’s the hierarchical structure. There’s the control of power at the top, and the demand for complete obedience. There’s the demand to defend the church at all costs, and the terrible consequences doled out to anyone who blows the whistle. Even the pomp, the rituals, the fancy clothes—all contribute to the belief that they are special, invincible, infallible.

I look at Wesolowski, in the photo above—this man who was dressed in all his finery, this man surrounded by all the devotion of his parishioners, this man who, hours after the ceremony, would be chasing limpiabotas (shoeshine boys) on the malecón of Santo Domingo.

He thought he could have everything, could get away with anything.

Sadly, for the most part, he has….

Did an Employee of the Vatican Commit Crimes on US Territory?

Well, let’s start with two caveats. First, it may be that reality—subjected to the blazing light and sopping humidity of the tropics—gets a little warped. In fact, I once hesitantly breathed this theory to Harry, a native of Old San Juan.

“Of course,” he cried, and told me the following story:

A gringo comes to oversee a factory in a small mountain town. The factory is running well, but the workers tend to call in sick a day or two every week. What was wrong? Clearly, the workers were unhappy: the gringo sought to increase morale by giving them higher pay. The result? The workers now called in sick three times a week!

“They weren’t interested in money,” said Harry, “they just wanted enough for their rice and beans and a caneca (flask) of rum. So when they got paid more, they didn’t have to work as much. See?”

It makes total sense, really—it’s just a different way of thinking. And so after living here for over twenty years, and after having written well-past-exhaustively on the topic of priestly abuse, who’s to say that my own sense of reality isn’t a bit warped? 

Second caveat: being a blogger tends to lead to a sort of conspiracy mindset. You read a lot about something, and then go on to the next thing, and then—weeks or months later—the first thing crops up again. You’ve now forgotten most of what you read, which makes it easy to believe that Machiavellian forces are at work.

So now—at long last—let me tell you what I remember.

A lawyer in Minneapolis, Jeff Anderson, has been an early and rigorous fighter for justice for the victims of clerical abuse. And he has had to fight long and hard to get a few dioceses to reveal their internal records. Chicago, for example, released in January of this year a collection of over 6000 documents that exposed what was happening internally in the diocese.

That’s great, but it’s only half the story. Yes, if within the diocese’s records there are Vatican letters, you can get a glimpse of what is going on in the Vatican. But it frequently is the blandest, most opaque glimpse. So the logical thing to do would be to go to court and ask for the court to tell the Vatican to hand over its records. Especially logical since the diocese is required to report all cases of clerical abuse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) which used to be the Holy Office, and which—more colorfully and forcefully—started out as the Inquisition.

Thus, local bishops were writing off to Ratzinger and the CDF, and guess what? God’s time is infinitely, majestically, gloriously… slow. So the bishops waited and waited, often for years at a time. In the meantime, the bishops were stuck with seriously sick priests; you can—almost—understand why they were shuffling them around to new victims in different parishes. What else could they do?

So what happened when lawyers went to court to ask the court to force the Vatican to reveal its records? Ah, cried the Vatican, but those bishops aren’t our employees! They are paid by the diocese, not the Vatican!

For this, the word jesuitry was made.

Hard shift to the southeast, specifically Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico—once defined by the US Supreme Court as not being the United States but pertaining to the United States (anybody up there get that? Drop me a line, if you do…)—falls within US jurisdiction.

And things have been a little strange in Arecibo. For one thing, six priests have been expelled in three years, and our local newspaper, El Nuevo Día, reports that there have been 20 cases of priestly abuse, as well as a federal lawsuit brought by one of the victims. Here’s what The New Day has to say in today’s electronic edition:

Fuentes de El Nuevo Día indicaron que agentes de ICE-HSI se acercaron al secretario interino de Justicia, César Miranda, y al fiscal general José Capó para colaborar e intercambiar información con la investigación que comenzó el gobierno estatal la semana pasada y así ellos también poder abarcar ángulos de jurisdicción federal.

“Hay mucho interés en indagar sobre los detalles de abuso sexual de menores por parte de sacerdotes y todo lo que ha salido publicado provoca que haya que actuar de inmediato”, dijo una fuente federal.

(“Sources for El Nuevo Día indicated that agents of IE-HIS approached the interim Secretary of Justice, César Miranda, and the Attorney General José Capó to collaborate and exchange information with the investigation which the state government began last week and thus to be able to also cover any angles that are of federal jurisdiction.

‘There’s a lot of interest in investigating the details of sexual abuse of minors on the part of priests, and everything that has come out publically makes it necessary to act immediately,’ said a federal source.”)

Now then, here the waters turn murky, as the runoff of politics surges into the pond.

The highest Catholic official on the island, Archbishop of San Juan Roberto González Nieves, is a strong proponent of independence and rubbed it a little too hard into people’s noses. So the statehooders had him investigated for four things, one of which was covering up abusive priests. And thus, in an investigation that lasted years, the papal nuncio—the Pope’s own ambassador and yes, a Vatican official—came to Puerto Rico, and were did he stay? Not in San Juan, but in…

…Arecibo.

The papal nuncio for the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico was Jozef Wesolowski, and where is he now? Apparently in the Vatican, where he fled—or was recalled—just before investigative news series was about to show him walking the malecón of Santo Domingo in search of something other than lovely seascapes.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have in some accounts asked for extradition: the Vatican has no extradition policy and Wesolowski, as a diplomat, enjoys immunity. But there are reports that Wesolowski didn’t behave much better in Puerto Rico than he did in Santo Domingo. Here’s what the Dominican press said about Wesolowski in Puerto Rico:

Según los testimonios difundidos por Burgos, en su programa Código Calle, del canal 29 de Santiago, Wesolowski es acusado en Puerto Rico de encubrir a los sacerdotes pederastas.

Los fieles católicos se quejaron ante el obispo puertorriqueño monseñor Iñaqui y ante el propio Wesolowski, pero no recibieron el apoyo que esperaban.

Un seminario fue cerrado, pero todo se mantiene en silencio, y el obispo Iñaqui [Sic.] fue promovido, en lugar de ser sancionado.

(“According to witnesses’ statements broadcast by Burgos in his program Código Calle on channel 29 in Santiago, Wesolowski is accused in Puerto Rico of covering up pederast priests.

Faithful Catholics protested to Puerto Rican bishop Iñaki (former bishop of Arecibo) and in front of Wesolowski himself, but never received the support they expected.

A seminary was closed, but everything was kept silent, and the bishop Iñaqi was promoted, instead of sanctioned.”)

Remember what I said about reality being different in the sun-drench vibrant air of the tropics? We seem to have Wesolowski—a man now accused of pederasty—investigating the archbishop of San Juan for covering up…pederasty. Who’s guilty of what? I sure don’t know.

And am I wrong in thinking that…

…a Vatican official may have committed crimes in the United States? This case is unique, the case we’ve been waiting for. At long last, a US court has the right to petition the Vatican to release its records, its internal documents, its policies and directives to bishops. At last, we can throw open the doors of the Vatican and take a look inside.

Am I the only one who sees that?