Tarnów Bishop Convicted for Delayed Abuse Reports
Sentenced to two years’ restriction of liberty and ordered to pay into victims’ funds; an appeal is planned and the verdict is not final.
On October 29, 2026, a district court in Tarnów, southern Poland, found Bishop Andrzej Jeż of Tarnów guilty of failing to promptly notify law enforcement of the sexual abuse of minors by two priests of his diocese.
Judge Małgorzata Adamczyk sentenced him to two years’ restriction of liberty, a noncustodial penalty, and ordered payment of 10,000 zlotys (about $2,538) on each count into a state victims’ fund—20,000 zlotys (about $5,075) in total. The court also ordered a portion of his monthly salary directed to child-protection work for the duration of the sentence. The verdict is not final; the diocese will appeal.
First criminal trial of a Polish bishop
The case is the first criminal trial of a Polish bishop on this charge. Since July 2017, Polish law has required immediate notification upon credible knowledge of the sexual abuse of a child under 15. The charge carried a possible maximum of three years in prison under Article 240 of the Penal Code.
“The court believes that the defendant’s task was merely, and yet as much as, to file the appropriate notifications, not to assess individual cases,” Judge Adamczyk stated. The court found the bishop’s testimony not credible.
In the first matter, former priest Stanisław P., whom prosecutors found had harmed at least 95 children in Poland and Ukraine, was defrocked by a Church tribunal decree issued by Bishop Jeż in 2013. The curia maintains the bishop had concrete information only in 2019 and notified prosecutors in 2020. Prosecutors closed that file in 2022 as time-barred. Prosecutor Marcin Stępień argued that the 2013 finding meant the delay left the abuse of 23 boys time-barred.
In the second case, priest Tomasz K. is accused of abusing minors between 2008 and 2010. The curia says the bishop learned only in late 2021 that a victim may have been under 15 and reported it that December; prosecutors said the curia knew in 2017. That case remains pending in Nowy Sącz.
Diocesan response and next steps
The curia said it “does not agree with the court’s decision,” stressed that it made formal notifications in both cases, and expressed “deep regret for the harm and suffering of all persons harmed by sexual crimes.” Defense lawyers Paulina Majtkowska and Monika Brzozowska-Pasieka will first request the written reasoning before pursuing the appeal.
Other Polish bishops, including Jan Tyrawa and Andrzej Dzięga, resigned after Vatican inquiries into their handling of abuse claims, but none previously faced criminal charges on this ground. The Church’s duty to protect the young and cooperate with civil authorities remains binding in both canon and civil law; the Tarnów ruling underscores how Polish courts now enforce statutory reporting timelines once a bishop is deemed to have had credible knowledge.