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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

A court has ordered a Catholic diocese in Poland to pay 550,000 zloty (€128,250) in compensation to a woman who suffered sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a priest over four decades ago. It has also ruled that the priest himself must publish an apology to his victim and admit his guilt.

The ruling, which can still be appealed, represents one of the largest compensation orders ever issued against Poland’s Catholic church, which has in recent years been hit by a series of revelations of clerical child sex abuse, as well as of negligence by bishops in dealing with such cases.

Iwona Dudzik-Osińska, who has allowed her name to be published, was first raped in 1981 at the age of 12 by a priest, who has only been named so far as Father Jan and is now 76 years old, in the city of Kielce. The abuse continued for a period of three years, she revealed to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

In 2007, Dudzik-Osińska decided to report the crimes to prosecutors, but was told that the statute of limitations had expired. In 2019, after the release of a major documentary on sex abuse in Poland’s Catholic church, she also informed Jan Piotrowski, the bishop of Kielce, of what she had suffered.

Dudzik-Osińska said that the bishop was sympathetic but told her he could not meet her request to provide church funds to pay for therapy. However, she later received a bank transfer (for an amount that has not been revealed) from Piotrowski’s personal account.

Meanwhile, Father Jan was suspended by the diocese of Sosnowiec, where he had been working since the 1990s, banned from contact with children, and brought before an internal church court.

 

A spokeswoman for the Sosnowiec diocese confirmed to Gazeta Wyborcza that, in 2023, the church court removed Father Jan from public exercise of priestly ministry (though he remains in the priesthood) and ordered that he must reside at a location designated by the bishop (which has not been publicly revealed).

In the meantime, Dudzik-Osińska launched a civil case against the church, demanding 900,000 zloty in compensation and an annual lifetime payment. The case lasted over four years, but in July the district court in Kielce issued a ruling, which is only now being reported.

It ordered the Kielce diocese to pay the victim 550,000 zloty. Moreover, Father Jan must send a personal apology to Dudzik-Osińska in which he admits to sexually abusing her, and also publish such an apology and admission of guilt, under his real name, in a local newspaper, reports Catholic magazine Więź.

The ruling can still be appealed by any of the parties involved. A spokesman for the diocese, Paweł Ścisłowicz, told Gazeta Wyborcza that they would only decide on further steps once the court had sent the justification for its decision.

Dudzik-Osińska’s attorney, Michał Sochański, celebrated the ruling as “one of the first of its kind in Poland” and said that it “reflects an extremely important trend in case law that can offer hope to those sexually abused by clergy many years ago”.

“Institutional mechanisms for resolving cases of sexual abuse in the church have proven insufficient for victims, but fortunately the court system remains an option,” he added. “Justice may come very late, but this verdict demonstrates that it is not unattainable.”

A Catholic diocese has been ordered to pay compensation to a man sexually abused as a child by a priest.

The victim was treated as an “accomplice in the sin of adultery” at a church trial that acquitted the priest, who was later convicted by a state court https://t.co/IHay5h56SG

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 10, 2022

Poland’s Catholic church has in recent years faced a growing number of claims of sexual abuse by clergy and of negligence in dealing with the issue by bishops.

The Vatican has taken action against a number of Polish bishops over the issue. Most recently, in 2024, the Holy See announced the resignation of the bishop of Łowicz, Andrzej Dziuba, due to his “negligence in handling cases of sexual abuse against minors”.

Meanwhile, the Polish church has introduced new rules intended to protect children and other vulnerable people from abuse,held meetings with victims, and apologised for its neglect in dealing with such cases in the past.

A church commission set up to investigate child sex abuse in a Catholic diocese in Poland has identified at least 50 victims and 29 abusers.

It also found that bishops repeatedly failed to take action when credible reports of abuse were submitted to them https://t.co/MRNl5vWp4E

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 13, 2026

In 2018, a court in the city of Poznań ordered the Society of Christ, a Polish Catholic congregation, to pay 1 million zloty in compensation as well as lifelong monthly payments of 800 zloty to a woman who had been abused by one of its priests as a child.

In 2022, the Catholic diocese of Toruń was ordered by a court to pay 600,000 zloty in compensation to a man who was sexually abused for almost a decade while serving as an altar boy.

Last year, Bielsko-Żywiec diocese was ordered to pay 400,000 zloty to another victim, who is also seeking a further 20 million zloty in compensation from the archdiocese of Kraków

A court has begun hearing the largest-ever compensation claim against Poland’s Catholic church by a victim of clerical sexual abuse.

Janusz Szymik, who says he was raped hundreds of times by a priest as a child in the 1980s, is seeking 20m zloty (€4.7m) https://t.co/8ENcjyKsi1

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 23, 2026

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Krzysztof Popławski/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY 4.0)

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.