Miroslaw M, aged 60, who is being held in custody pending trial, pleaded guilty to the brutal mur-der of the 68-year-old homeless man, identified as Anatol Cz, following an argument over the victim’s housing and care. Accor-ding to the Radom district prose-cutor’s office, the priest and the victim had previously signed a donation agreement transferring a property to the clergyman who had agreed to provide lifelong assistance and care for the home-less man.
In the evening of 24 July, M. struck his victim with an axe and doused him with petrol, setting him ablaze while he was still alive. A cyclist discovered the body in the village of Lasopole in the central Mazowieckie province in east-central Poland and alerted the police who identified the suspect through the licence plate numbers of a car seen leaving the scene without lights, leading them to the parish rectory. Authorities plan to upgrade the charges to murder with exceptional cruelty, a classification used in Polish law for murderers who subject their victims to addition unnecessary suffering. If convicted, the priest faces life imprisonment.
The Catholic Church in Poland is in a state of shock. In a statement addressing the crime released on 25 July, Archbishop Galbas said the archdiocese would co-operate fully with law enforce-ment and initiate all necessary canonical procedures: “I have no words of comfort for you today, let alone any explanation or justification … I am devastated and crushed by the news that one of my priests has brutally murder-ed a man – a poor and homeless man. As bishop of the Church in Warsaw, I feel morally responsi-ble for everything that happens in this Church, both the good and the bad. Also for this terrible crime. I apologise to you.”
He asked the faithful to pray for the soul of the deceased and his victims and for priests in the diocese to “undertake personal penance and prayer of reparation, starting today”.
He added: “The blood of our murdered brother cries out to God. Let us beg God for forgiveness and beg forgiveness from people. I myself beg for it.”
Spanish bishops speak out after leaks of their meeting with Leo XIV
The executive committee of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, (CEE, by its Spanish acronym) meeting in Madrid this week, issued an official statement regarding the leaks
