Officials in Gdańsk have ordered the removal of a monument to a Catholic priest linked to the Solidarity movement amid accusations that he was a paedophile, as the country’s bishops take new steps to combat clerical abuse.
“We’ll probably never know the truth, since this key figure is no longer alive,” explained Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, Gdańsk’s newly elected mayor. “While I value the presumption of innocence principle, there can only be one decision given the current level of emotions.”
The mayor spoke as the city council voted to demolish the statue of Fr Henryk Jankowski (1936-2010), an associate of Lech Wałęsa and other Solidarity leaders, who was rector of Gdańsk’s St Brygida parish during the 1980s strikes at the nearby shipyards.
