Pope John Paul II covered up abuse by priests before becoming pope: ResearchConcrete evidence shows former pope knew child abuse priests while he was archbishop, says Dutch journalist OverbeekAMSTERDAMPope John Paul II covered up abuse by priests decades before becoming a pope, according to a Dutch investigative journalist.The pope ignored the sexual abuse of minors by some priests under his administration in Krakow, Poland, where he was archbishop, and did not dismiss them, Ekke Overbeek said.The news in the Dutch public broadcaster NOS included archival research that Overbeek conducted for three years in Poland, where Pope John Paul II was born and archbishop.“The reasoning of the church -- of the defenders of the pope -- boils down to the fact that he would not have known, that he understood the seriousness of the situation very late, and that he first thought it was America's problem.Speaking on the book, Stanislaw Obirek, a Warsaw University professor, said the investigation “is true enough to destroy the myths that John Paul II was a saint in his youth.” Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form."