The Vatican said that it arrested a former archbishop, Pole Jozef Wesolowski, on charges of alleged paedophilia on Tuesday, after Pope Francis gave the green light. Wesolowski is accused of paying for sex with children while he was a papal ambassador in the Dominican Republic.
The arrest was the first inside the Vatican for alleged paedophilia.
Wesolowski was defrocked by a Vatican canon law tribunal in June after being found guilty of child abuse. The 66-year-old has been put under house arrest at a facility inside the Vatican, rather than taken to jail, due to ill health, pending a criminal trial.
Wesolowski, who was recalled to Rome last year, could face up to 12 years in prison. "The initiative taken by Vatican City State' judicial organs is in accordance with the Pope's express will that such a grave and delicate case be addressed without delay, with the just and necessary rigor and with the full assumption of responsibility by the institutions of the Holy See," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.
Pope Francis has vowed to take a hard line with cases of child sex abuse. He is seeking to repair some of the damage done to the Catholic Church's image by a long series of clergy paedophilia scandals in many parts of the world in recent years.
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