Bishop Andrzej Jeż convicted in Tarnów for late reporting of abuse by priests

The verdict

The District Court in Tarnów has convicted Bishop Andrzej Jeż of failing to report sexual crimes against minors to law enforcement in time. The ruling was announced on Thursday, 29 October 2026, and covers two cases involving priests connected to the Tarnów diocese. The verdict is not final. The bishop received two years of restriction of liberty, during which 25% of his monthly pay goes to the Dajemy Dzieciom Siłę Foundation. The court also ordered him to pay 10,000 zł in each case to the Fund for Aid to Victims and Post-Penitentiary Aid and to cover the costs of the proceedings. He was not in the courtroom when the sentence was read.

What the court said

Judge Małgorzata Adamczyk said in her oral reasoning that the duty to report comes directly from Polish law and applies to every citizen, whatever their office. She stressed that concealing such knowledge is punishable by up to three years in prison.

“Every citizen, including a clergyman or church superior, who learns of a case of paedophilia has a legal duty to report it to the police or prosecutors.”

Rejecting the defence's reliance on church procedure, she added:

“The Code of Canon Law is not a source of generally binding law in Poland. It is only an act of the Catholic Church's law regulating its own institutions.”

The court held that the bishop's task was simply to file the appropriate notifications.

The two cases

The first case concerns Stanisław P., a former priest whom prosecutors say abused boys in Poland and Ukraine over several years. According to the diocese, the matter was first reported to Ukrainian authorities, and the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith ordered a canonical criminal-administrative process after the diocese opened church procedures. The diocesan delegate reported the case to Polish authorities in August 2020. The prosecutor noted that this notice came after a article by priest Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski brought the matter to light. The diocese also says one victim had told the Opole District Prosecutor's Office about this priest as early as 2010.

In the second case, concerning Tomasz K., the diocese says the bishop learned in late 2021 of a possible crime against a person under 15 and ordered authorities to be notified, which the delegate did on 16 December 2021. Prosecutors believe the diocese had the information much earlier than that version suggests.

Prosecution and defence

Prosecutors had asked for 10 months' imprisonment, suspended for three years, plus a fine of 20,000 zł. Prosecutor Marcin Stępień argued in closing that the delays had serious consequences, including the expiry of the limitation period in some victims' cases. He said the diocese should have reported immediately after 2017 legislation introduced criminal liability for failing to report certain offences, including child sex crimes, yet the notifications came more than three years later. Defence lawyer Zbigniew Ćwiąkalski argued that until 2022 there were doubts whether the duty covered acts committed before the 2017 change. The bishop denied guilt from the first hearing onward and told the court he had not known for a long time that some victims in the Tomasz K. case were under 15.

Diocese response and next steps

The Tarnów diocese said it does not agree with the ruling. The bishop's lawyers will request the written justification and, after studying it, file an appeal. The diocese stated that formal reports were made in both cases and that other persons and state institutions also knew of them.