Jozef Wesolowski was officially removed from his position as Vatican ambassador for the Dominican Republic in the wake of child abuse reports. Wesolowski was an apostolic nuncio, and the Vatican’s executive envoy for the Dominican Republic. Dominican Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito reported: “We have formally opened an investigation. Here we have to work with two legal aspects, first national laws and also international laws in his status as a diplomat, which implies other mechanisms of investigation and judgment.” However, the Pope had already pulled Wesolowski last month after an internal church connected him with child abuse and pedophilia, says Monsignor Agripino Nunez Collado, the rector of a Catholic university and spokesman.
Nunez also commented that the issue will not simply go to Dominican church officials, but is a more grave offense because Wesolowski was an official Vatican representative. Local dioceses are able to make certain decisions in cases involving sexual abuse, but nuncios are strictly under the guidance of the Vatican. Pope Francis had said before he was elected that he had a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual abuse in the clergy and supports the completion of “due proceedings against the guilty.”
