Faithful Defending Fr Andrzej Łuczyński: Where Is God in the Legnica Curia?

An email addressed to Grażyna Hanaf reached our editorial office in March 2024:

Dear Editor,

I appreciate you for your professionalism and objectivity. I am writing because I would like you to hear the truth connected with the case of my friend, Fr Andrzej Łuczyński. After today’s publication, I could not leave this matter alone because I can see the price Fr Andrzej is paying for it. He is in a deplorable psychological and physical state. As he emphasizes, and I apologize for the expression, he is being grilled by the Bishop of Legnica. None of the accusations are supported by facts. (…) I am convinced that this entire matter was arranged in order to destroy my friend. I took the liberty of conducting a small investigation and would like to share my observations with you, Editor. (…) Father Andrzej is an honest man who was destroyed by the Church hierarchy. I ask: where is God in the Legnica Bishop’s Curia? And how much hypocrisy is there? (…)

We decided to investigate the matter and find out, at least approximately, why the priest from Lubomierz was first suspended and then removed from the list of priests.

Unfortunately, Fr Andrzej Łuczyński was forbidden to contact the press, and the Legnica Curia refused to comment on the case (although we obtained the bishop’s statement when we surprised him during his visit to Bolesławiec; his statement will appear at the end of the article). All the information collected comes from the priest’s friends and from documents they gave us.

September 2023: members of the Parish Council in Lubomierz speak with the R. couple

Among other things, readers sent us a statement from the Parish Council in Lubomierz. On September 8, 2023, five Council representatives were informed by the priest that one of the parishioners had accused the parish priest of having an affair with his wife (the R. couple). The priest told the Council that this parishioner had threatened to beat him and demanded that the priest immediately leave the parish in Lubomierz. The priest informed the police about the entire matter.

Staff Sergeant Olga Łukaszewicz, press officer of the County Police Headquarters in Lwówek Śląski, described the incident as follows:

Last year, a priest (Andrzej Łuczyński – editor’s note) came to the community police officer from the Gryfów Śląski Police Station to talk, report the situation that had occurred and seek advice. He was not interested in filing a criminal report. Having this information, the community police officer also contacted the other party to the conflict. The man presented his version of events and informed the officer that the further course of the matter would end up before an ecclesiastical court. The officer prepared internal documentation to confirm the actions taken.

Members of the Parish Council met with the R. couple twice, on September 9 and 20, 2023. During the first meeting, Mr R. repeated his demand that the priest leave the parish, but did not state the reason for this demand and did not mention, in front of the witnesses, the alleged affair between Fr Andrzej and his wife. When asked by the Council to explain, Mr R. left the meeting without saying a word.

The R. couple was invited to the second meeting again, with a request for an explanation. Unfortunately, this time, too, Mr R. did not want to state why he demanded that Fr Andrzej leave the parish. And the meeting itself, as the parishioners wrote to the Curia, was turbulent.

The reason for the commotion was that Fr Andrzej publicly asked Mrs R. whether he had behaved improperly in any way that might indicate that he had solicited an affair, and whether she could confirm or deny that she had ever been alone with the parish priest. Mrs R. answered in front of the witnesses that the priest had not behaved improperly toward her.

When informing the bishop about this conversation, the parishioners wrote that Mrs R. had been nervous and that they perceived her as someone intimidated by her husband. They wrote that when she answered, “she looked at her husband to see whether he would allow her to.”

At this meeting, Mrs R. was also supposed to answer the priest’s question about whether she had told him that, if he broke off contact with her, she would commit suicide. Although she said that she did not remember it now, she added that she might have said such words. The R. couple left the meeting without saying goodbye, while the parishioners present became convinced of Fr Andrzej Łuczyński’s innocence.

December 2023: members of the Parish Council speak with the bishop

Fr Andrzej went to see Bishop Andrzej Siemieniewski with parishioners supporting him.

“We advised Fr Andrzej to speak with the bishop because he had confided in us about his problem,” our source says. “It was better not to wait until Mr R. told the bishop a load of nonsense. We urged the priest to explain what was happening in the parish. The priest decided that the advice was good and went to the Curia with two parishioners. The bishop received them and listened to them. The priest said what he had to say: that he was being attacked, that he felt bad about it and that he was innocent. The parishioners accompanying him confirmed his words. The priest even asked to be transferred to another parish. The bishop simply listened and did not say a word. In the end, he ordered everything to be described in writing and the letter to be brought to the Curia,” the source added.

The letter and the priest’s visits to explain the matter in person produced no results. The priest was summoned for a kind of interrogation.

“Fr Andrzej learned unofficially that Mr R. had also reported him to the bishop,” the source says. “When he found out, he went to the Curia, where he was interrogated. He was asked a series of questions from which he could infer that this was an accusation: he was asked about his relations with Mrs R., about the sacrament of confession and whether he had absolved her of sins they had committed. He was asked about an affair with yet another woman from Lubomierz. So he inferred what he was accused of. After this interrogation, he was supposed to report to the bishop, but only the auxiliary bishop was there (Fr Piotr Wawrzynek – editor’s note), because the bishop had gone somewhere. And the decree was already ready, stating that Fr Andrzej was suspended, could not celebrate Mass in Lubomierz and, in short, had to evacuate the place within three days. Fr Andrzej still wanted to clarify something and ask Fr Wawrzynek about something, but he declared that the conversation was over. It was simply uncivilized, and Fr Andrzej was devastated. But what could he do? He went to Lubomierz and began packing. Then, in the midst of those emotions, he complained to us that he could not even say goodbye to people because he could not celebrate his final Mass. And he wrote such a moving letter. First he read it to us. Then he posted it on the parish website. Perhaps he should not have done so, but he was emotional, wasn’t he?” the source, deeply affected by the matter, added.

January 2024: Fr Andrzej suspended from his duties as parish priest

On January 4, 2024, a statement by Fr Andrzej appeared on the parish website, in which the clergyman informed the faithful that on January 3 he had been suspended from his duties as parish priest by the Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Legnica. The decree of suspension was also signed by the Chancellor of the Legnica Curia, Fr Józef Lisowski.

In his statement to the parishioners, Fr Andrzej wrote that he had been interrogated by an ecclesiastical court as the accused, and that the indictment sent to the Curia by the R. couple accused the priest of intimate relations with Mrs R. and other women from St Maternus Parish in Lubomierz. The priest wrote that he had additionally been accused of granting absolution for the sin of adultery that Mrs R. was alleged to have committed with him.

The priest added categorically that these were slanders, lies and calumnies intended to destroy him as a priest and a human being, and that the alleged evidence meant to incriminate him had been fabricated.

The Curia, however, had a different response for the press than the priest.

The Curia spokesman said that proceedings against the priest were still under way and that he had not yet been accused of anything. He told “Wyborcza” that Fr Andrzej had violated the bishop’s decision and published a statement on the parish website. In the statement, he was also said to have provided false information.

Our findings indicate that the Curia silenced Fr Andrzej by forbidding him to contact journalists and deprived him of an ecclesiastical defender in the proceedings. The priest who defended Fr Andrzej in the proceedings at the Curia terminated his power of attorney in March 2024, citing “the failure of the priest’s superiors to respect the representative’s person” as the reason.

As we checked, Fr Andrzej is no longer listed in the directory of priests of the Diocese of Legnica available at: diecezja.legnica.pl/ksieza.

“Fr Andrzej Łuczyński requested a break from ministry, and if he asks to be reinstated, we will look for a parish for him,” the Bishop of Legnica Andrzej Siemieniewski told istotne.pl journalist Grażyna Hanaf in June 2024. The journalist surprised the hierarch during his visit to Bolesławiec. “That is how it is sometimes. Priests take such leave, like teachers do. Priests also sometimes experience a difficult period,” the bishop added.

After hearing the bishop’s words from us, an informant familiar with the parish priest’s case wrote:

The bishop suspended the priest and said that his case had gone to Rome. And that he cannot be given a parish because he was in the media. And he lied to you, Editor, because (Fr Andrzej – editor’s note) cannot return, is forbidden to hear people’s confessions and was removed from the list of priests of the Diocese of Legnica. And he is supposed to wait—but for what?

June 2024: there is no Curia conspiracy

Having received neither an answer nor support from the Curia, parishioners speculate about why Fr Andrzej was suspended. Their hypothesis is a struggle for the position of parish priest in Lubomierz.

According to the faithful, Fr Andrzej took steps to have the Baroque Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Maternus in Lubomierz elevated to the rank of a shrine. This prestigious title would distinguish the parish from others. It would certainly also be associated with increased financial income.

According to the faithful, Fr Andrzej fell into a trap laid by another priest and the R. couple. The other priest was allegedly using the R. couple to obtain the more lucrative parish in Lubomierz than his own.

These are all speculations, intensified and fueled by the Curia’s silence. The parishioners describe the above hypothesis in several accounts, which we will combine into one statement.

“Some members of the Lubomierz community believe that the R. couple began cooperating with Fr Andrzej on the instructions of another priest. The first six months were normal: she sang, he played, and the priest celebrated Mass. Mrs R. often met with the priest’s mother; they simply liked each other. At the same time, the R. couple regularly visited the other priest’s new parish. They called and wrote to each other like good friends. After some time, Mrs R. began behaving strangely and suggesting sexual relations to the priest. Hence the priest’s sudden termination of cooperation with the couple,” the faithful speculate.

The parishioners claim that Mrs R. had a friend to whom she wrote messages about her erotic fantasies involving Fr Andrzej. When her husband read these messages, he began threatening the parish priest and wrote a complaint to the bishop alleging a possible violation of celibacy. Her friend’s husband allegedly urged him to write a second complaint. This is supposedly how the scandal that psychologically devastated Fr Andrzej began.

The faithful and Fr Andrzej’s friends are convinced that Bishop Siemieniewski was most angry that the priest had published a statement on the parish website and that the media had begun writing about it. They believe that despite the lack of evidence of the priest’s guilt, he remains suspended and the bishop does not want to listen to them.

Grażyna Hanaf asked Bishop Siemieniewski whether the alleged affair between Mrs R. and Fr Andrzej was untrue, since the woman herself had denied having any relationship with the parish priest from Lubomierz, and whether it was a conspiracy against the priest orchestrated by the Curia.

“A conspiracy? By the Curia? If that is what they believe, let them write what kind of conspiracy it is,” the bishop replied to the journalist.

Grażyna Hanaf added that parishioners believed another priest wanted to take over the lucrative parish and, together with the R. couple, had eliminated Fr Andrzej, while the R. couple had lied to the bishop.

Bishop Siemieniewski repeated that he knew nothing about such a conspiracy and was hearing about these revelations for the first time.