MAXIMA CULPA

Did Karol Wojtyla know about pedophilia among priests before he became Pope John Paul II? Did he help them avoid responsibility? The answer to both questions is yes, according to investigative journalist Ekke Overbeek's explo- sive exposé, MAXIMA CULPA, just published in Poland and already making waves internationally.

Overbeek's revelations shed important and urgent light on Wojtyla's silence and inaction as Pope in dealing with the crisis interna- tionally, including with former Cardinal McCarrick in the US, Father Maciel Marcial Degollado in Mexico, and Archbishop of Vienna Hans Groer. As the Archbishop of Cracow in the 1970s, Wojtyla often stood eye to eye with priests who admitted to molesting children, and yet, two repeat offenders, Fathers Surgent and Loranc, were allowed to remain priests. Wojtyla helped a third abusing priest, Boleslaw Sadus, avoid potential criminal prosecution in Poland by moving him abroad to Austria, where his career flourished. Ekke Overbeek takes us behind the scenes of his investigation into the responsibility of Archbishop Wojtyla for covering up pedophilia among his clergymen. He follows the documents that survive in the archives - from government intelligence files to contemporaneous court documents and trial transcripts - and tracks down former victims of and witnesses to these unspeakable crimes. He describes the collective amnesia that descended, but also asks, in light of the collected evidence, whether the various much-defended theses - that John Paul II for a long time knew nothing about the clerical sex abuse of minors; that his mind was too pure to believe such allegations; that his experience in communist Poland made him believe all such allegations were false, maybe provocations by the communist secret service meant to discredit the Catholic Church; that he was deceived by the Vatican officials around him towards the latter years of his pontificate - can be maintained. Overbeek reveals that the Archbishop who ordained Wojtyla into the priesthood, and with whom he maintained a close relationship, had himself been accused of sexually abusing young priests and seminarians in his archdiocese. Could this be a key to understanding his later silence as Pope? Ekke Overbeek is a long-time Central European correspondent for Dutch media and has lived in Poland for almost three decades. He is the author of the bestselling book BE AFRAID: Victims of Pedophilia in the Polish Church Speak Out (2013), which broke open the topic of child abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland at the time, and co-producer of the 2013 documentary film "Silence in the Shadow of John Paul II."