The scandal that has surrounded the diocese of Sosnowiec, in southwestern Poland, since this summer has already had consequences. Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Polish bishop Grzegorz Kaszak and, although the Vatican, as usual, has not given further explanations, it is evident that the step is motivated by the sex party organized by a priest from his diocese at the end of August. . A “gay orgy”, according to the description of the Polish media, in which a man ended up unconscious after taking erectile dysfunction pills.
It all happened during the night of August 30 to 31, when a priest from the Dabrowa Górnicza community, named Tomasz Z., invited two young people to his apartment to have a sex party, a prostitute and his partner. But the meeting ended badly when one of the guests, the one offering his sexual services, overdosed on pills and collapsed.
One of the people at the scene called the emergency teams, but when the ambulance arrived the priest did not allow the doctors access, probably so as not to be discovered in this type of attitude. Finally, when they managed to enter, after alerting the police, they found a naked and unconscious man in the priest’s apartment. He was taken to the hospital, from which he ended up leaving after requesting discharge at his own request. The Sosnowiec prosecutor’s office is investigating the parish priest for failing to provide assistance to a person whose life was seriously at risk.
The priest who organized the party was immediately removed and the diocese published a statement stating that his actions were “the cause of a great scandal for the faithful and justified indignation for public opinion.” The diocese of Sosnowiec also considered the events “a very serious violation of moral norms” and stressed that the Church “strongly condemns” this type of behavior.
Bishop Kaszak asked the faithful to pray for the priest Tomasz Z. and the other people involved. At 59, he was far from retirement age, at 75, but the Pope did not hesitate to accept his resignation with great speed.
It is not the first incident in this diocese that ends up in the newspapers. In March, the body of a 26-year-old deacon was found with several wounds that seemed to indicate a homicide. According to local investigators, he would have been murdered by another 40-year-old priest, who later committed suicide, after both had been in a conflictive relationship for some time. Furthermore, in 2010, the Polish media published that the then rector of the seminary was caught in a skirmish in a gay club, despite which he remained at his job for another year.
