A court in Poland has ordered the Catholic dioceses in the cities of Wroclaw and Bydgoszcz to pay 300,000 zloty (77,000 dollars) in damages to a former altar boy.
The boy who was raped and molested by a priest 10 years ago, a local media reported on Friday.
The plaintiff, now 21, demanded damages from the church, claiming that the priest’s superiors had known about his paedophiliac tendencies since 2005, but covered for him instead of preventing him from working with children, the Gazeta Wyborcza daily reported.
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The dioceses have the right to appeal the verdict.
The priest himself had been convicted in 2015 for seven years in prison for rape and other sexual abuse involving three boys.
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He was removed from the priesthood in 2019.
His case was described in a documentary on paedophilia in the Catholic church called Don’t tell anyone.
The film shocked the nation after it was released in May, quickly reaching millions of hits on YouTube.
According to the Polish Church, complaints about sexual abuse of minors were filed against 382 priests between 1990 and mid-2018, involving about 625 victims.