Man claims that a monk working at a school raped him

On 10 December 2023, we published the first part of the report “Who is Adrian?”. We described the relationship between the Bolesławiec parish priest and an influencer 30 years younger than him (that is, a person who appears online and wants to influence other people). In the report, we also showed how one of the Bolesławiec priests arranged to have sex with a man. At the end of the film, we included information for people who wanted to share their stories involving priests who preach one thing from the pulpit but do something else in their lives.

A dozen or so people responded to our appeal. One of them was Borys (name changed), who told us his story involving an important priest from one of the Salesian educational institutions.

WARNING – This material should only be read by people over 18. It contains descriptions of alcohol consumption and intercourse involving violence.

Our material shows dangerous contacts that users of dating websites, including gay dating apps, may encounter. On such websites, people we meet may commit sexual assault. Learn the rules for staying safe online and dating safely on the internet.

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Borys’s story

In May 2023, 33-year-old Borys met an older man on a dating app for homosexual people, and the two became close.

“I downloaded the app on Sunday, 14 May 2023,” says Borys. “On the very first day, a man contacted me and asked me to send him a photo. The conversation was standard: what is your name, where are you from, what are your sexual preferences, are you active or passive? I replied that I was active, which suited him. He was passive. He wanted to talk to me on WhatsApp. He sent me photos on the app in which he looked a good ten years younger. When I called him on video, I saw that he was much older than me. However, he looked like an ordinary person. Not a drug addict, not an alcoholic. We met just a week later in a rented apartment in Gliwice,” says Borys.

On the day of their first date, both men went for coffee while waiting to be able to check into the apartment. The older man paid for the apartment. At their first meeting, he did not tell Borys that he was a priest.

After checking into the apartment, the men became intimate. As the active partner, Borys took an erection pill to prolong intercourse. His new partner said that he liked rough sex. Afterward, they went shopping together and had dinner. Everything looked like an ordinary date.

“During our first meeting, after sex he wanted to wash me like a small child. I had no problem with that. It was pleasant and affectionate,” Borys recounted.

The men’s relationship began to take on an emotional dimension. Borys became involved. He sent his new partner affectionate text messages, wishing him a pleasant day or a good night. The man replied just as warmly. Only before their second meeting, two weeks later, did he admit that he was a priest.

“He said that he did not want to lie to me and admitted that he was a priest,” says Borys. “I was a little upset, but I thought to myself that he was a nice person. He called me late, after 10 p.m. He could not do so earlier because, as a monk, he spent time together with five other brothers and only had free time late in the evening,” Borys explains.

In June, the Salesian had a birthday, and Borys went to the school where he worked and gave him a present. It was a social visit; the priest had already arranged to meet his fellow monks and also had, as he said, professional duties.

Borys increasingly liked both the relationship and the Salesian himself. The men met until October 2023. Their meetings looked similar. They had sex, drank alcohol, ate meals together and went to restaurants. They shared the costs of these meetings.

For their fourth meeting, the men could not find a private place to stay. The Salesian could meet only in the town where he worked, so he suggested that Borys book accommodation. When it turned out that there were no vacancies at the facility, the Salesian decided to invite Borys to his own place, on the school grounds, where he had an apartment.

“I had to arrive there between noon and 1 p.m.,” says Borys. “So I took a taxi to get there on time. I bought some things and sent a photo showing where I was. He came to get me wearing a cassock and led me past the surveillance cameras to his apartment. He also told me that if anyone asked, I should say that I was visiting children from Ukraine who were spending time at the school. As soon as we entered, he took off his cassock and we had oral sex.

“We each drank a beer, and he said he had to hurry to his activities and a meeting with the monks so that no one would realize he had a guest. I was supposed to wait for him. I recorded a video of the place, then went to sleep. He came into the room after 10 p.m., completely drunk and very aroused. He was very kind to me, saying that he liked me and that I was so hairy and masculine. Then we went to the bedroom. He said to me: ‘Do whatever you want with me, I’m really fucking drunk.’ During intercourse he was very loud, shouting and crying out: ‘This feels so good, your cock fits my ass.’ For him, it was fantastic, euphoric sex. In the morning he went to Mass in the chapel. Then he called and said that I had to get ready to leave, take everything with me so that no one would see anything, and that he would come and lead me out again while avoiding the cameras,” Borys described his visit.

Nothing suggested that Borys might fear the Salesian or that the Salesian might force him to have anal intercourse.

A passive and active gay man? What does that mean?

The sexual roles preferred by both men are important to this story. The priest described himself as passive during intercourse, meaning the person who is penetrated. Borys was active during sex and did not consent to anal penetration.

We asked psychologist Anna Jastrzębska, president of “Fortior – Fundacja dla Wielu”, which specializes in working with men who have experienced sexual violence, what contact between an active and passive gay man looks like. Borys is currently receiving support from this foundation.

“The role a man with a homosexual orientation identifies as limits the number of sexual activities he is willing to undertake,” explains Anna Jastrzębska. “If he identifies as active, it is most often because he does not choose anal penetration, as for some reason it does not suit him. In addition, there are people who say they can have satisfying sex as active partners and are also capable of having satisfying sex as passive partners. But there is also a group of people with a homosexual orientation who definitely exclude a passive role for themselves,” the psychologist adds.

The Salesian’s last date with Borys

The two men’s last meeting took place at Borys’s apartment in Zabrze on 21 October 2023. Borys prepared carefully for the meeting. He took Friday off work to prepare homemade dishes for his beloved’s arrival. They spent the night from Saturday to Sunday together.

“The friend I rent the apartment with was at work on Saturday, so we took advantage of his absence and had sex. When my friend returned, we ate and drank together. Then he went to his room, and we were left alone,” Borys recounts.

After some time in bed, the Salesian began behaving differently than usual.

“He threw me onto my stomach on the bed, held me down and said that he would enter me,” says Borys. “I said that I did not like it. No one had ever done that to me. He reassured me and kept telling me that he would enter me and that I would feel it soon. It hurt me. I did not like it. I kept telling him that. He had trouble inserting his penis into my anus, but he did not stop. He raped me. I could not believe that this man had two faces. Until then he had been kind and pleasant, had always been passive during sex, and everything had been going well, but suddenly he behaved as he did. After the rape, he mocked me. I was in shock. The next morning I did not know what to do with myself,” says Borys.

After that night, he was not himself. He considered reporting the matter to the police. To have proof that the Salesian had been in his apartment and that they had had intimate contact, he kept the towel the Salesian had dried himself with after intercourse. Two weeks later, Borys decided to call the police.

“Immediately after that night, I felt that I had to report it somehow,” Borys explains. “However, I was in shock. The police asked me why I had come so late. I do not know. He always told me that he had friends among politicians and police officers, and I was afraid of those influential friends of his. It was not easy. When I told him that I had reported the rape to the police, he sent me a text message saying that if I continued to threaten him, he would report me to the foreigners’ affairs office. I did not threaten him; I only informed him that I had reported the rape to the police.”

Borys began experiencing health problems. “At work, everyone knew me as a positive, cheerful person,” says Borys. “That ended. After the rape, my stomach began to hurt, I could not sleep and I had anxiety. People at work did not recognize me. Eventually, I went on sick leave,” he adds.

Borys emailed the priest’s school with photos showing him together with the Salesian. He received no reply.

Discontinuation of the investigation

After two months, the Zabrze District Prosecutor’s Office discontinued the investigation into the rape. The injured party’s lawyer filed a complaint against the proceedings. It is not known, however, whether the court will find the complaint justified. During the investigation, based on the statements of the parties, including the friend living with Borys, and the evidence collected, the prosecutor’s office confirmed sexual contact between the Salesian and Borys.

Both the priest and Borys testified that they had sex at several meetings in their respective roles: Borys was active and the Salesian passive. Only on 21 October did those roles change, and the Salesian was also active during intercourse at Borys’s apartment in Zabrze. The prosecutor nevertheless found that this intercourse—as well as the earlier encounters—had taken place with the mutual consent of both men.

One thing in the decision is puzzling, however: a court-appointed expert stated that, from a psychological perspective, the injured party’s testimony was credible and that he himself displayed characteristics of victims of sexual violence.

Below are excerpts from the decision to discontinue the investigation.

(…) When assessing the evidence, the prosecutor took into account the relationship between the two men and therefore the discrepancy in their assessment of the relationship; however, regarding the possibility that the crime of rape had been committed, the men gave consistent testimony. The Salesian’s testimony may be considered credible; it was mutually consistent. As for the injured party Borys, his testimony concerning the events of 21 October 2021 largely corresponded with the Salesian’s testimony, but there was a contradiction in their testimony regarding what happened after intercourse. When comparing the injured party’s testimony with the content of the text messages exchanged with the Salesian, the injured party maintained affectionate contact with him and assured him that he loved him. (…)

In this case, a forensic psychological opinion was obtained, which found, among other things, that the subject, Borys, showed no intellectual disability or symptoms of mental illness, and that the witness’s cognitive and intellectual functioning raised no concerns, falling within the norm appropriate to his age and education. Furthermore, the expert stated that the subject displayed characteristics of victims of sexual violence. The expert stated that, from a psychological perspective, the injured party’s testimony was credible.

(…) however, the description of the injured party’s testimony concerning the Salesian’s behavior on the alleged date lacks a credible and real element that would meet the objective criteria of violence, threat or deception. (…) An analysis of the evidence, particularly a comparison of the Salesian’s and Borys’s testimony, provides no basis for finding that the anal intercourse occurred through the use of violence.(..)

“When we are dealing with sexual intercourse taking place behind closed doors,” explains Anna Jastrzębska, “we have one person’s word against another’s, and a battle begins over who is actually right; very often, the parties present contradictory accounts. One side says that they were forced through physical force to submit to a sexual act, even though they had previously stated that they did not consent to that act. The other side says that if sexual intercourse took place, consent to sex continued. Whether the boundaries of sexual freedom were violated in some way must be examined during the investigative proceedings. This is not at all simple, because the event took place in a bedroom and no one else was there,” the psychologist adds.

What do the Salesian’s superiors say?

In 2021, in the United States, the secretary general of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Fr. Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, resigned solely because the Catholic website The Pillar revealed that he regularly used a dating app and was seen in gay bars. Meanwhile, Archbishop José Gómez, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated that “the Conference takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and will take all appropriate steps to address them.”

Can we expect similar standards in Poland? We sent an inquiry to the spokesperson for the Bishop of Gliwice.

Good morning,

Our editorial office is preparing an article about the sexual contacts of Fr. (...) with a man from an app, in the context of rape allegations that were the subject of an investigation by the Zabrze District Prosecutor’s Office in November–December 2023.

We possess photographs (evidence of the priest’s intimate, homosexual contacts (...)), documents from the prosecutor’s office and the personal account of (...), who, as the priest’s lover, (...) stayed at the educational and care center in (...).

Did the bishop take any measures concerning the priest (...) after learning of the allegations of rape and the priest’s homosexual contacts?

It turned out that the bishop does not take responsibility for this priest

Praise be to Jesus Christ!

Dear Editor,

no measures were taken against Fr. (...) because he is not a priest of our diocese. The educational and care center in (...) is run by (...), who are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Gliwice. The aforementioned (...) have their own superiors, so please contact them regarding this matter.

On 16 January 2024, we sent an inquiry to the press spokesperson for the Inspectorate of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales. To this day, we have received no response.

According to information we obtained, since January 2024 the Salesian has been using the app again and looking for new partners.