A South Boston priest has been ordered held on $10,000 cash bail following his arraignment today for allegedly having child pornography on a rectory computer.
Andrew Urbaniak, 39, a priest at Our Lady of Czestochowa in South Boston, was charged with one count each of possession of child pornography and distributing images of a child in the nude.
Should he post bail, Urbaniak will be placed on a GPS monitoring device, must surrender his passport, can have no
contact with children under 16 and can not use the Internet. He must also allow random checks of his computer and check in with a
probation officer twice a week while the case is pending.
Urbaniak has been placed on administrative leave following his arrest yesterday at the church on child pornography charges involving the use of a computer located in the parish rectory.
The arrest came after a two-month long police investigation by state troopers assigned to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Detectives got a search warrant and seized Urbaniak’s computer where they found pornographic images of girls who appear to be between the ages of 8 and 10.
The files were named “pre-teen,” “young,” “little,” “pedo,” “pedofilia,” and “lolitas,” according to Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley’s office.
“The Archdiocese is fully cooperating with law enforcement. The Church prays for all those impacted by these events and is committed to providing for the pastoral care of the parish during this difficult time,” said Kellyanne Dignan, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese.
According to the church’s website, Urbaniak has been the pastor since September 2008.
Dignan said today that Urbaniak is a religious order priest, not a priest of the Archdiocese, and that he was ordained in Lodz Poland in 1998.
“He was assigned here by his order in Poland to assist the Church with our Polish Catholic community,” Dignan said.
The Provincial Superior of his religious order in Poland has been informed of the arrest, she said.
Urbaniak is being held on $25,000 cash bail, though he has not been charged with enticing a child and no victims have come forward.
