The Rev. Andrzej J. Urbaniak was downloading and sending sexual images of children when Boston police detectives entered the South Boston rectory where he lives to arrest him on pornography charges, a prosecutor said at the priest’s arraignment Wednesday.
Authorities said Urbaniak, who was arrested Tuesday, confessed to downloading and sharing pornographic pictures of children, most of whom appeared to be between the ages of 8 and 10. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment.
Urbaniak, who emigrated from Poland 14 years ago, has been the priest at Our Lady of Czestochowa Church in South Boston for four years....
“This is a very decent man charged with indecent activities,” said Jeffrey Denner, the attorney who represented Urbaniak at his arraignment in South Boston District Court, where he was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail.
Our Lady of Czestochowa is a parish in the Archdiocese of Boston that ministers to the city’s Polish community. Urbaniak belongs to an order of Franciscan priests with headquarters in Poland....
Urbaniak’s arrest stems from an investigation that began June 13. A Massachusetts state trooper working undercover on the Internet, as part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, traced a pornographic image of a girl about 10 years old to an Internet protocol address allegedly belonging to Urbaniak. The trooper alerted Boston police....
As news of Urbaniak’s arrest spread across the city’s Polish Triangle, parishioners said they were surprised to hear such accusations aimed at the priest beloved by many.
Urbaniak is tall and thin with a youthful face; parishioners at Our Lady of Czestochowa often joked that he looked like a student. Urbaniak became popular because of his plainspoken sermons and warm, casual manner with those who sought his counsel.
“Some priests, they say whatever they have to say, and then they’re done,” said Agnieszka, 30, who attends the church and declined to give her last name. “But when [Father Urbaniak] speaks, you really want to listen to him, and not fall asleep.”
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Last November, when Grant D. Smith, 47, a University of Utah professor, was arrested and subsequently charged with possession of child pornography after a passenger allegedly noticed him looking at some images on his laptop during a flight to Logan Airport from Salt Lake City.
In January, David Ettlinger, a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in Newton, was arrested on child pornography charges after authorities said they found hundreds of illegal images on his computer. Police began tracking him after he allegedly made numerous visits to a reputed online forum for child pornography.
See: Nastiness in Newton
On Sunday, a story in The Boston Globe detailed a vast international child pornography network that federal authorities uncovered after receiving a picture from a Milford man who thought he was sharing it with fellow child-pornography voyeurs. The man’s miscalculation led to 42 arrests and the discovery of 140 children who had been violated.
See: Photo e-mailed from Mass. man led to vast global child pornography network
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Related: Parishioners shocked by child porn charges against priest
He's not alone:
"Mo. priest admits he produced child porn" by Bill Draper | Associated Press, August 03, 2012
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Roman Catholic priest in Kansas City pleaded guilty Thursday to producing child pornography in a federal case that also led to charges against the diocese bishop for failing to report suspected child abuse. Prosecutors plan to recommend that the priest be sentenced to life in prison.
The Rev. Shawn Ratigan, 46, had been scheduled for trial later this month. He was charged with child pornography in May 2011 in Clay County after police received a flash drive from the priest’s computer that contained hundreds of images of children, most of them clothed, with the focus on their crotch areas. Prosecutors alleged he photographed girls, sometimes under their skirts, in and around churches where he had worked in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph....
The case opened old wounds for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, which in 2008 agreed to pay 47 clergy abuse victims a total of $10 million and promised to train its priests about sexual abuse awareness and to report any suspicions that children were being placed in danger.
The latest case also led to misdemeanor criminal charges against the diocese and Bishop Robert Finn — the highest-ranking Catholic official in the US to be charged with shielding an abusive priest — for failing to report suspected child abuse to the state. Both have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to go to trial in September.
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