Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican to reopen the case of a widely known priest-artist accused of sexually, psychologically and spiritually abusing adult women, and removed the statute of limitations on their claims, the Vatican said Friday.
The announcement marked a significant turnaround for the Holy See and followed an outcry amongst victims and their advocates over the handling of the case of the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, a former Jesuit whose mosaics grace churches and basilicas all over the world.
A Vatican statement said Francis’ abuse prevention commission had flagged “serious problems” in the way in which his case was handled initially, particularly within the “lack of outreach to victims.” That terminology in itself was significant because church authorities had previously refused to even consider women with claims against Rupnik as “victims.”
Francis asked the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles abuse-related crimes in accordance with church law, “to review the case and decided to lift the statute of limitations to permit a process to happen,” the statement said.
Rupnik, a Slovene priest, was declared excommunicated by the Vatican in May 2020 for probably the most serious crimes within the Catholic Church’s legal code: using the confessional to absolve a lady with whom he had engaged in sexual intercourse.
The Jesuit order kicked him out this summer after several adult women accused him of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuses dating back 30 years. After conducting their very own investigation, the Jesuits said they found the ladies’s claims to be “very highly credible.” But they said the Vatican’s canonical norms in force on the time of the alleged abuse precluded harsher punishment for old cases involving the abuse of adults.
The scandal has been a headache for the Vatican and Francis himself because of suspicions that Rupnik received favorable treatment from the Holy See since Francis is a Jesuit and other Jesuits head the sex crimes office that investigated the priest and declined to prosecute him for the abuse claims.
