Two weeks after the Vatican said its canonical criminal trial of Father Marko Rupnik was ongoing, OSV News has learned that 22 previously undisclosed letters from women who belonged to the Slovenian Loyola Community and described alleged abuse by the famed mosaic artist are part of the records of alleged abuse.
The letters, written in 2000 at the request of the community’s superior, Sister Ivanka Hosta, and addressed directly to Father Rupnik, are held in the archives of the Loyola Community, which are now in the custody of the Archdiocese of Ljubljana, Slovenia, according to people familiar with the case. In the letters, 22 women described alleged spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse by Father Rupnik while he was their spiritual director.
On Dec. 15, 2023, the Archdiocese of Ljubljana announced that the Vatican had ordered the Sisters of the Community of Loyola to be dissolved within one year, following a decree issued by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
OSV News was told by a source close to the case that it is presumed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith knows about the letters.
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