Poland has been shaken by a very serious event: at the Oleśnica hospital, a baby (under the fictional name Felek) at 37 weeks of pregnancy, who was ready to be born, was killed with a potassium chloride injection in the heart. The baby’s “crime,” who would have been able to survive outside the mother’s body, was a diagnosis of osteogenesis imperfecta. Felek’s mother was offered the possibility of delivering the baby by cesarean section and providing him with specialized medical care. Obviously, the mother could have done it anonymously and given the baby up for adoption. However, prompted by pro-abortion activists, she refused that option and went to Oleśnica hospital, where abortion gynecologist Gizela Jagielska performed an abortion, although in this case, it should rather be called murder.

Polish public opinion was shaken by this grave event, and people expressed their outrage even on social media. Among those who did not remain indifferent to this brutal murder was Father Grzegorz from the Diocese of Przemyśl, who sent an email to Jagielska’s hospital expressing his indignation. For this, he was arrested and transported across Poland to be interrogated in Oleśnica, where the abortion doctor works.

The details of the arrest are shocking. On April 22, the day after Easter, Father Grzegorz, suffering from bronchitis and very tired after the intense Easter Triduum, visited his mother and sister. When the priest left around 3:00 p.m., three men in civilian clothes showed up at the family home asking if “Mr. Grzegorz” was at home. Upon learning that he had left, they asked the sister to call him immediately and began searching the house for electronic devices. For Father Grzegorz’s mother, an elderly and sick woman, it was a shock.

When the priest returned, he heard the accusations: his email sent to Oleśnica hospital was interpreted as containing criminal threats against Gizela Jagielska. To these accusations, Father Grzegorz responded that he had written the truth because the gynecologist had killed the child that was under the mother’s heart.

The police also searched his parish: the pastor was forced to hand over his brother’s computer. The priest spent the night between April 22 and 23 at the Krosno police station in a detention cell. He prayed all night. The next day, he was taken in a prisoner transport van to Oleśnica, a traumatic 500 km journey. He felt humiliated and had trouble breathing. According to his family, due to the stress, Father Grzegorz lost a lot of hair, and the rest turned gray.

In Oleśnica, he heard the charges: he is accused of defamation and threats against Jagielska. He was placed under police surveillance and must report to the police station every two weeks. Additionally, he cannot approach Jagielska or speak about Oleśnica hospital. After the procedures at the prosecutor’s office were completed, he was released—without a phone, without money, 500 km from home. Thanks to the help of friends and priests in the city, he returned home.

The arrest and charges against the priest, as well as two other people involved in the same case, sparked a wave of outrage. The Metropolitan Curia of Przemyśl even reacted with a statement. Although it emphasized that it did not want to comment on the content of any email or statement made by Father Grzegorz, as they were personal opinions and any decision on the matter rested with an independent court, it expressed “profound indignation at the way the priest in question was treated by law enforcement, which was completely disproportionate to the needs of the situation and extremely repressive concerning any potential responsibility for the act he was accused of.”

The Curia stressed that the priest could have been summoned for questioning at the local police unit or the prosecutor’s office and that the necessary activities could have been carried out there. The statement reads: “We consider that the arrest of the priest at his family’s home, the use of handcuffs, the search of the parish, his detention in Krosno to then transfer him the next day to Oleśnica, over 500 km, to carry out procedural activities that could have been performed in Krosno, and finally, the abandonment of the priest on the street in Oleśnica after completing the procedures, constitute an unjustified measure of repression, unjustified violence, and humiliation. Therefore, this is a manifestation of the fight against the Catholic Church.”

The Curia has no doubts that “the purpose of these actions was solely to provoke a media lynching of the priest” and believes that “these actions constituted an unjustified abuse of power by the law enforcement authorities.” The statement highlights that “there were no reasons to justify such a measure against the priest, as he did not hide, did not destroy evidence, and did not take other measures to obstruct the criminal process.”

The involvement of some media in all these events “could indicate that it was a prepared process to discredit a Catholic Church priest.” Therefore, the statement from the Curia of Przemyśl ends with a bitter reflection: “The event described above is extremely painful for our community, and we perceive it as an attack on the Catholic Church.” This is the Poland well-regarded in Brussels: the pro-choice Poland, the most anti-clerical since the democratic shift of 1989.