John Wojnowski
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John Wojnowski born 1943 in Warsaw, Poland has maintained a one man protest outside the Vatican embassy in Washington DC since 1998. Wojnowski, a retired ironworker, stands on Massachusetts Avenue during afternoon rush hour holding signs with slogans such as "My life was ruined by a pedophile priest" and "Pedophiles infest Vatican". His protest stems from an incident in which he claims to have been molested at the age of 15 by a Catholic priest in a village outside Milan, Italy. Although the Catholic Church offered free counseling they have refused his demands for what he considers just monetary compensation, citing Italian statute of limitations laws. The priest who allegedly molested Wojnowski died in the 1980s.
Since thousands of commuters pass the traffic signal at the Vatican embassy each day, Wojnowski's protest is familiar to many Washington, DC and Maryland residents. The initial reaction to Wojnowski was somewhat hostile with many passing motorists yelling curses and some even physically threatening him. He reports that at one point his sign was ripped from his hands, thrown in the back of a pickup truck and stolen. However, media focus on the Catholic sex abuse scandal during 2002 has generally led to a more supportive reaction.
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