(ZENIT News / Rome, 11.06.2024).- The canonical investigation of the well-known Slovenian priest and artist Marko Rupnik, is in an advanced stage, according to a top Vatican official. The intention is to attend to the numerous accusations against him and to the opinion of those that consider the Church’s handling of the case inadequate.
Monsignor John Joseph Kennedy said to journalists on May 28 that the trial of the former Jesuit requires timely treatment. “It’s a delicate case, really, and we are working on it. We started well and we continue step by step, taking all the aspects into account, as there is the aspect of the accusations against him, the aspect of the victims, and the aspect of the impact on the Church. Hence, it’s delicate.”
Monsignor Kennedy is Secretary of the Disciplinary Section of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), the Holy See’s main authority in the investigations of abuse cases by priests.
Rupnik, 69, is accused of sexually abusing at least 30 consecrated women of the Loyola Community, which he helped to found in his native Slovenia during the 1980s decade. He was expelled from the Society of Jesus in the context of accusations of abuse. The renowned painter and sculptor, has many works and murals in churches and shrines, including the Vatican and the Marian Shrine of Lourdes.
After the accusations of abuses committed by Rupnik, in 2021 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed at that time by Spanish Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, denied the opening of the canonical investigation, based on a statute of limitation on adult abuse.
For its part, the Society of Jesus prohibited Rupnik to exercise his priestly ministry in December 2022, restricted his trips for new artistic projects, and invited those that wanted to file other complaints against the former Jesuit. Fifteen new complaints surfaced. He was expelled from the Order for disobedience in June 2023, as he refused to collaborate in the investigation.
Expelled from the Jesuits, Rupnik was incardinated in the Slovenian Diocese of Koper. Attending to a notorious public rejection, Pope Francis changed the disposition and reopened the canonical trial in October 2023, shortly after the incardination was made known.
Monsignor Kennedy clarified that the use of spiritual images and symbolisms by Rupnik as a mystical experience of the divine is an abuse, which the Church calls “false mysticism.” Moreover, it’s a crime against faith. In regard to the use of false mysticism to commit abuses and the absence of that figure in Canon Law, he specified: “The fact that it’s not a crime (prescribed in the Law) doesn’t mean that it’s something good.”
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