Vatican arrests former archbishop

Passed along in email yesterday was this Australian news account of the Vatican's first-ever pedophilia arrest of a former archbishop.

Jozef Wesolowski, a Pole who was defrocked by a Vatican tribunal in June, was placed under house awaiting a criminal trial, the Vatican said in a statement.

Jozef Wesolowski

Whether the arrest represents a sea change in the Vatican's thinking about its child-molesting priests or whether it is yet another damage-control ploy is hard to guess, but the arrest certainly would have been impossible several years ago when the Vatican used its vim and vigor to defend itself, assert its righteousness and avoid the social lash that society can lower on child molesters.

Perhaps the arrest was in aid of staving off worse repercussions. Or perhaps it represented a more open and responsible approach to a problem the church has strained to evade.

Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, vowed zero tolerance against Roman Catholic clerics who sexually abused children.
Last May, he called such abuse an "ugly crime" and likened it to "a Satanic Mass".
In July, he told victims of sexual abuse the Church should "weep and make reparation" for crimes he said had taken on the dimensions of a sacrilegious cult.