The Vatican has accepted the resignation of two US bishops accused of failing to protect minors from a paedophile priest and set a date for the unprecedented trial of a senior cleric for paedophilia.
The two US bishops’ resignations follow the 2012 jailing of Minnesota priest Curtis Wehmeyer for the sexual abuse of minors he preyed on during camping trips and possession of child pornography.
Wehmeyer’s conviction led to the archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis being charged on June 5 with six counts of failing to protect minors after prosecutors unveiled substantial evidence that senior Church officials failed to act on repeated warnings from parents and others that the priest was a danger to children.
No individuals have been charged but the two clerics who have stepped down were both named in the complaint as having failed to heed the warnings. A former papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic will be tried for paedophilia next month in the first case of its kind to be brought before a Vatican court.
The first hearing in the trial of Jozef Wesolowski has been scheduled for July 11, 2015. The Polish former archbishop is accused of possession of child pornography in Rome in 2013-14 and the sexual abuse of minors during his 2008-13 spell as the Church’s representative in the Dominican Republic.