THE Rev Rafal Jarosiewicz, a Catholic priest who recently led a book-burning ceremony in Gdansk, Poland, has been fined by local authorities.

An anti-smog group has also reportedly complained to prosecutors about the illegal burning of books and other items in an open fire outside a church.

Jarosiewicz...published the apology late Tuesday on the Facebook page of the foundation he founded, Fundacja SMS Z Nieba. The page had earlier carried photos of the ritual in which items deemed to be “disturbing” to parishioners at Our Lady Mother of the Church and St Catherine of Sweden were consigned to the flames.

Those photos were swiftly removed after a huge backlash, but went viral on the Internet. Some pointed out that book-burning was a favourite pastime of the Nazis, and one person suggested that involving youngsters in the ritual was “psychological child abuse.”