Ex- archbishop set to face first Vatican paedophilia trial

Vatican city will stage the city's first paedophilia trial next month Credit: Daniel Kalker/DPA

A former archbishop is set to become the first senior cleric to go on trial for paedophilia in the Vatican.

Jozef Wesolowski, an ex-papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic, will be tried on charges of paying for sex with minors and possessing child pornography in the first case of its kind to be brought before a Vatican court.

The trial is set for July 11 and is seen to be further indication of Pope Francis' intention to crackdown on sex abuse by clergy members.

Wesolowski, 66, was detained in the Vatican last September after becoming the first person to be arrested for paedophilia charges in the city-state headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

The trial will be the highest profile judicial event in the Vatican since former papal butler Paolo Gabriele was convicted of stealing and leaking private papers of former Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.