Pope Francis’ Jesuit religious order is making a broad gesture of reparations to some 20 women who say they were sexually, psychologically and spiritually abused by a famous ex-Jesuit artist and have been waiting for justice for years from the Vatican.
A top Jesuit official in Rome, the Rev. Johan Versuchen, said Wednesday he had sent a letter outlining the offer to twenty individuals who say they were abused by the Rev. Marko Rupnik. The Slovenian artist is one of the crucial celebrated religious artists within the Catholic Church and his mosaics decorate churches and basilicas world wide, including on the Vatican.
The Jesuits expelled Rupnik from their order in 2023 after greater than two dozen women got here forward to say he had sexually, spiritually or psychologically abused them over 30 years, some while they were collaborating with him on artworks. He stays a priest and his supporters have denied he did anything flawed.
The women had made the claims against him years ago, but Rupnik long escaped punishment, each since the women weren’t minors on the time of the alleged abuse and since of his exalted status within the church and on the Vatican, where even Pope Francis’ role within the case got here into query.
Jesuits say they now believe healing is feasible
With the case languishing on the Vatican, Versuchen wrote to the 20 alleged victims on Tuesday lamenting that Rupnik had refused to interact in a path of truth and reparation and that the institutional church for years had refused to listen to their claims or provide justice.
He said now, the Jesuit order had “confidence that a strategy of healing and inner reconciliation is feasible, provided that there’s also a path of truth and recognition on our part,” in line with excerpts of the letter cited by a lawyer for a few of the women, Laura Sgro.
In an email to The Associated Press, Versuchen confirmed that the letters invited victims “to know what they would want now, and the way we will meet that need,” Versuchen said.
He described the gesture as “an prolonged hand” offered on a person, anonymous and case-by-case basis.
“Any path to reparation will totally depend upon the person invited. The concreteness of that can follow later,” he said, adding that the Jesuits too have to learn from the victims in order that such abuse isn’t repeated.
Often such gestures from the church involve economic assistance, within the types of spiritual or psychological help, in addition to financial compensation and even help finding work.
Sgro thanked Versuchen and the Jesuits for what she called a “clear, strong and concrete gesture” of reparation. She called for the Vatican’s dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is handling the Rupnik investigation, to finally prosecute him and “restore dignity to the victims.”
“There really may be no more delay now; justice just must be done,” she said.
Suspicions of favoritism put Francis under pressure
The Rupnik scandal first exploded publicly in late 2022 when the Jesuit order admitted that he had been excommunicated briefly in 2020 for having committed considered one of the Catholic Church’s most serious crimes: using the confessional to absolve a lady with whom he had engaged in sexual intercourse.
The case continued to create problems for the Jesuits and Francis, because the Vatican initially refused to prosecute other allegations of abuse, arguing the claims were too old. Under pressure due to suspicions he had protected his fellow Jesuit, Francis ultimately waived the statute of limitations in order that the Vatican could open a correct canonical trial.
Francis in a 2023 interview with the AP denied he had intervened within the case, apart from procedurally.
While the investigation has been accomplished, no tribunal has yet been convened to listen to the case.
The head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, told reporters last week that he was having a tough time confirming external judges to listen to the case. The case is extremely sensitive, given suggestions of favoritism for the pope’s friend, and has raised questions on what to do with the handfuls of basilicas world wide that feature the artist’s distinctive mosaics.
“We’ve made a listing (of possible judges) and we’ve began talking to them because you’ve gotten to search out judges who’ve certain characteristics for such a mediatic thing,” Fernández said.
To date Rupnik hasn’t responded publicly to the allegations and refused to answer his Jesuit superiors during their investigation. His supporters at his Centro Aletti art studio have denounced what they’ve called a media “lynching.”
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