Medical examiners rule out foul play in death of former nuncio who faced abuse charges

December 18, 2015

A full post-mortem examination has confirmed that the laicized archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who was facing a criminal trial for sexual abuse, died in August of a heart attack, the Vatican has announced.

Wesolowski, who had been relieved of his post as apostolic nuncio in the Dominican Republic because of sex-abuse charges, had been stripped of his title after a canonical trial, and was living at the Vatican under house arrest, preparing to face criminal charges, when he died. His case was seen as a test of the Vatican’s determination to discipline bishops guilty of sexual abuse.

Wesolowski’s trial was postponed once in July when he was hospitalized. A few weeks later, before the trial resumed, he was found dead at his residence. An immediate autopsy attributed his death to a “cardiac event.”

The Vatican announced on December 18 that chemical toxicological examinations, performed under the supervision of a board of medical examiners, had ruled out any “exogenous causes”—an apparent reference to the possibility of poisoning—and that the disgraced prelate’s death was “ascribable to natural causes.”

 

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Further information:

• Holy See Press Office Communique on the autopsy of Msgr. Jozef Wesolowski (VIS)
• Ex-nuncio, facing Vatican trial for abuse, died of ‘cardiac event’ (CWN, 8/31)