František Merta

František Merta (* 1951 ) is a former Catholic pastor from the Czech Republic who was convicted in 2001 for abuse of minors ( acolytes ).

These acts took place in the municipalities of Napajedla , Spytihněv , Pačlavice and Holešov ; there were at least five victims . He denied his guilt, but the court assumed identical testimony from the witnesses from different places. The two-year prison sentence was suspended. The Archbishop Jan Graubner has given him a job in the archive assigned.

The criminal complaint was filed by theology student Václav Novák in May 2000, at the same time against the archbishop , whom he accused of knowing about child abuse. Before that, Novák tried to resolve the matter with the archbishop, but was unsuccessful.

The Archbishop always moved Merta from one end of his diocese to the other when the protests got too loud. He later defended himself in the press that he only had this information second hand and that it was therefore not his business to file the criminal complaint. The police discontinued the criminal proceedings against the archbishop as irrelevant.

Václav Novák was then expelled from the theological faculty because he had not been able to take appropriate exams in time.

The matter has caught the attention of most of the mass media in the Czech Republic.