One year after the Vatican announced it would open a canonical case on Father Marko Rupnik — an artist and former Jesuit accused of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse — victims say they feel disappointment and betrayal at the Church’s lack of response and transparency.
Rupnik has been accused of abusing adult women who were under his spiritual care as part of a religious community he helped found in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some of these accusations became public through the media in early December 2022, although the priest’s superiors and officials at the Vatican were aware even several years earlier.
While the investigation and trial of Rupnik is still pending, the priest remains free to exercise his ministry in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia, where he was accepted in 2023.
A year ago on Oct. 27, days before the close of the 2023 assembly of the Synod on Synodality, the Holy See Press Office published a statement saying that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to open a disciplinary case against the now-disgraced priest.
“The pope is firmly convinced that if there is one thing the Church must learn from the Synod [on Synodality] it is to listen attentively and compassionately to those who are suffering, especially those who feel marginalized from the Church,” the Vatican communication said.
A full year later, as the second session of the Synod on Synodality concluded, its final report published Oct. 26 called for “healing, reconciliation, and the rebuilding of trust” in light of the scandal of different kinds of abuse.
Continue reading at Catholic World Report