Walesa’s chaplain molested a 12-year-old boy. The former president: "Why should I now be responsible for his misconduct? He hid under my umbrella"

Lech Walesa’s former chaplain is alleged to have committed paedophilia. These are the findings of Sekielski Brothers, which were revealed in the film „Just don’t tell anyone” (“Tylko nie mów nikomu”). The former president emphasizes: „I knew nothing and never suspected anything”.

Fr. Franciszek Cybula was a chaplain to President Lech Wałęsa. The journalists recorded with a hidden camera the moment when the priest’s victim informed the curia about the priest’s crimes. The priest died in February this year, but the film shows his confrontation with the victim. Father Cybula admits to harassment of a 12-year-old boy. Journalists of „Dziennik Bałtycki” asked Lech Wałęsa if he knew what his chaplain was doing.

Are you kidding?! I - a Catholic - should know and not react?! I am surprised. I simply cannot imagine that a priest could have gone so far as to do something like that. He hid under my umbrella and now I have to answer such questions

— said Walesa.

The former president was clearly nervous about the fact that he was asked difficult and uncomfortable questions.

Nobody informed me that something like this could happen

— he emphasized and added:

I come from a village, I received a simple upbringing and I didn’t hear anyone formulate such suspicions about priests.

This is the second chaplain of Wałęsa who is accused of child abuse. Earlier, the Solidarity chaplain and the long-time parish priest of St. Bridget’s Parish in Gdańsk, Henryk Jankowski, was accused of sexual abuse against minors.

Walesa was reluctant to answer any further questions and stated:

Why did they hide under my umbrella? Why do I now have to be responsible for their misconduct? My reasoning does not include such a course of thinking that I could possibly consider a priest to act in such a way

— he emphasized.

It is a pity that in Tomasz Sekielski’s film there was no mention that some of the priests who are „heroes” of his documentary were „TW” (secret collaborators of the former communist security services).

Tłum. K.J.