2023-10-26 20:59:00
A celebrated artist-priest expelled from the Jesuit order following being accused of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse of women has been accepted by a diocese in his native Slovakia, in a case that implicates the pope and exposes the limitations of the domestic legal system. from the Vatican.
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The Diocese of Koper confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday that Father Marko Ivan Rupnik was accepted there in August.
The diocese said it had not received any documentation that “(Rupnik) had been found guilty of the alleged abuse before an ecclesiastical tribunal or a civil court.”
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The statement cited the provision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the presumption of innocence and the right to defense of anyone accused of a crime.
Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate churches and basilicas around the world, was excommunicated by the Vatican in May 2020. The Jesuit order expelled him in the middle of this year when several adult women accused him of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse dating back to 30 years ago.
FILE PHOTO. People queue in the sun in front of the Almudena Cathedral as they wait to enter the Royal Palace during the third heat wave of the summer in Madrid, Spain. August 8, 2023. REUTERS/Susana Vera
The scandal has been a headache for the Vatican and Pope Francis himself over suspicions that Rupnik received favorable treatment from the Holy See, given that Francis is a Jesuit and that other members of the order head the sex crimes office that They investigated the priest and gave up trying him.
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After conducting its own investigation, the Jesuit order announced in June that the women’s allegations were “highly credible,” but that canonical norms in effect at the time of the alleged abuse prohibited harsher sanctions for older cases of adult abuse.
The case began when the Jesuits admitted that Rupnik had been sanctioned with some restrictions following an investigation into sexual and psychological abuse of nuns in the 1990s, despite the statute of limitations.
According to the chronology published on its website by the Society of Jesus regarding this episode, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree in May 2020 that punished the Jesuit with excommunication for the crime of “absolution of an accomplice of an sin once morest the sixth commandment”, but shortly following, with an extraordinary act, the excommunication was lifted and it is still unknown who did it, since Pope Francis assured that it had not been him.
The online newspapers Left and Domani published testimonies from nuns who claimed that they suffered “repeated and prolonged sexual abuse by Father Rupnik since 1994.
Pope Benedict XVI, center, celebrates mass in front of the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes, France, on Sept. 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
The Domani newspaper also published a testimony from another nun who claims that she suffered “repeated and prolonged sexual abuse by Father Rupnik since 1994, abuses justified with blasphemous theological and sacramental arguments.”
The woman accuses Father Rupnik of being a serial attacker and claims that there are also several other victims.
This Jesuit is known worldwide for his mosaics such as those that adorn the façade of the Basilica of Lourdes, in France, a chapel of the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, in the monastery of Santo Domingo de la Calzada or in the cathedral of La Almudena in Madrid.
In 2008, Rupnik designed the façade of one of the three basilicas in Lourdes with a series of mosaics to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that turned the sanctuary in southwestern France into one of the largest pilgrimage sites in the world, with approximately 3 million visits a year.
The Catholic Church has long responded to allegations of abuse of authority by priests by blaming women themselves for seducing clerics, portraying them as mentally unstable, or downplaying the act as a mere “mistake” or “violation of faith.” the limits” by a holy priest.
(With information from AP)
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