ROME (AP) – The head of Pope Francis’ Jesuit religious order admitted Wednesday that a famous Jesuit priest was convicted of one of the Catholic Church’s most serious crimes about two years before the Vatican decided to shelve another case against him for allegedly abusing other adult women in their spiritual care.
The Rev. Arturo Sosa, Jesuit Superior General, made the confession during a briefing with journalists that was dominated by the scandal over the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik and the reluctance of both the Vatican and the Jesuits to tell the full story behind the lenient treatment he received even after he was temporarily excommunicated.
Rupnik is unknown to most Catholics, but he is a giant within the Jesuit order and the Catholic hierarchy because he is one of the most sought-after artists in the church. His mosaics portraying biblical scenes decorate the basilica of Lourdes, in France, the Vatican’s Redemptoris Mater chapel, the John Paul II institute in Washington and should beautify the new basilica of Aparecida, in Brazil.
The scandal involving Rupnik broke out last week when three Italian blogs – Silere non Possum, Left.it and Messa in Latino – began revealing allegations of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse against Rupnik by women in a Jesuit community he was affiliated with in his native Slovenia.
The Jesuits initially responded with a statement on Dec. 2 that confirmed an allegation had been received in 2021, but said the Vatican’s sexual abuse office had determined that the allegations, dating back to the 1990s in Slovenia, were too old to be processed. The Jesuits said they decided, however, to keep in place “precautionary restrictions” on his ministry that prohibited him from hearing confessions, giving spiritual direction or leading spiritual exercises.
The statement posed more questions than it answered and completely omitted the fact – first reported by Messa in Latin and later confirmed by the Associated Press – that Rupnik had been convicted and sanctioned by the Vatican following a 2019 allegation that he had acquitted a woman. in confession. having had sex with him.
The so-called acquittal of an accomplice is one of the most serious crimes in Church canon law and carries with it the priest’s automatic excommunication, which can only be lifted if he admits to the crime and repents – something that Rupnik did, Sosa said in response to an AP question.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “said what happened, there was an acquittal of an accomplice,” Sosa said. “So he was excommunicated. How do you lift an excommunication? The person has to recognize and has to regret what he did”.
Sosa had already insisted that the Jesuits were no longer hiding anything about Rupnik. Asked why the Jesuits did not reveal the conviction related to the confession, Sosa said on Wednesday that “there were two different moments, with two different cases”.
Sosa then contradicted the Jesuits’ earlier statement and said the restrictions on Rupnik’s ministry actually dated from that confession-related conviction, not the 2021 allegations that the Vatican’s sex crimes office decided to shelve because they were considered too old to prosecute.
There was no explanation why the office, which normally waives the statute of limitations for crimes related to abuse, decided not to waive it this time., especially considering the previous conviction for an equally serious crime against an adult woman. The office, now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, is run by a Jesuit, has a Jesuit sex crimes prosecutor, and was number 2 at the time someone who lived in the Jesuit community of Rupnik in Rome.
Sosa was asked what, if any, Francis knew about Rupnik’s case, or whether he intervened. Sosa said he “could imagine” that the prefect of the dicastery, Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, would have informed the pope of such a decision.
Dicastery officials did not respond to emails requesting comment or declined to comment, forwarding the questions to the Vatican spokesman, who in turn forwarded the questions to the Jesuits.
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