Józef Wesołowski

Józef Wesołowski (15 July 1948 – 27 August 2015) was a Polish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was an archbishop from 2000 until being laicized by the Holy See in 2014. He was the Apostolic Nuncio to the Dominican Republic from January 2008 until he was recalled in August 2013. Authorities in the Dominican Republic were investigating allegations of child abuse against him. In June 2015, the Vatican announced he would stand trial on charges of possessing child pornography, for which he faced a possible prison term. He died on 27 August 2015 of a heart attack before going to trial.

Career

Wesołowski was born in Nowy Targ, now a part of Lesser Poland Voivodeship, on 15 July 1948. He was ordained a Catholic priest in Kraków on 21 May 1972 by Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II. He earned a degree in canon law. To prepare for a career as a diplomat, he studied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy beginning in 1976. He joined the diplomatic service of the Holy See on 25 March 1980. His early assignments took him to Southern Africa, Costa Rica, Japan, Switzerland, India and Denmark.

Pope John Paul II appointed him a titular archbishop and apostolic nuncio to Bolivia on 3 November 1999 and consecrated him a bishop on 6 January 2000. In 2002, Pope John Paul appointed him nuncio to four Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan and Tajikistan on 16 February, Kyrgyzstan on 6 July, and Uzbekistan on 6 November. On 24 January 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named him Apostolic Nuncio to the Dominican Republic and Apostolic Delegate to Puerto Rico.