“Evidence that Pope John Paul II hid sexual abuse is very convincing”

That is reported by journalist Ekke Overbeek in the Dutch daily Trouw. Overbeek researched Polish archives for three years. “I found concrete cases of concrete priests in the archdiocese of Krakow where the late pop was Archbishop at the time, he says to the Dutch news website NOS. “The future pope know of them and yet transferred these men. That led to new victims.”

According to Overbeek, who wrote the book “Maxima Culpa”, which will be published next year in Polish, the proof of his statement is “very convincing.” He looked at dozens of documents which documented the situation of four pedophilic priests, the NOS writes.

Prof Stanislaw Obirek, professor of Cultural Anthrophology in Warsaw, calls the evidence that Overbeek collected “believable, and brave that he dared to write it down”. “First hand information, authentic, historical and accurate information which unravels the myth of John Paul II who is often seen as a holy man from his youth on”, Obirek says to the NOS, as reported by Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad.

The American priest Tom Doyle calls the “new facts” about John Paul II, who was canonised in 2014, “dynamite.” He did so in Trouw.

The Vatican and the archdiocese of Krakow did not want to comment when asked by the Dutch daily Trouw.

Pope John Paul II, born as Karol Józef Wojtyla, passed away on April 2, 2005 at the age of 84.