Women’s letter of outrage to Pope over bid to rehabilitate ‘abuser’

Five alleged victims of Marko Rupnik say the papal pledges of ‘zero tolerance’ of sexual abuse are a hollow ‘PR campaign’.

Priest, artist and former Vatican consultor Marko Rupnik

Five women allegedly abused by Marko Rupnik, a priest, artist and former Vatican consultor, have written to Pope Francis complaining his pledges of “zero tolerance’’ of sexual abuse are a hollow “PR campaign’’.

The women posted the letter on a public website after not receiving replies to earlier letters to the Pope. They also raised concerns about an apparent campaign to rehabilitate the priest’s reputation.

The controversy has erupted as the Pope faces calls from two Australian church whistleblowers, both priests, to defrock and excommunicate Bishop of Broome Christopher Saunders, following findings that he abused and groomed young Aboriginal men in the Kimberley. A church-commissioned investigation described Bishop Saunders as a “sexual predator’’ who sought to “prey upon vulnerable Aboriginal men and boys’’.

Father Rupnik, 68, a Slovenian who lived and worked in Rome at the Centro Aletti, a Christian arts study centre, which he founded, is a former Jesuit but he remains a priest. The Vatican’s official news site reported in July that Father Rupnik received a decree of dismissal from the Jesuits on June 14, 2023 following his refusal to “undertake a path of truth and dealing with the evil denounced by so many people”.

The head of the Jesuit order has confirmed he was excommunicated in May 2020, for using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had sexual relations. The excommunication was lifted after he repented. Shortly before the excommunication Father Rupnik was selected to preach a Lenten sermon to the Pope and the Curia.

But earlier this year, the Vatican news site revealed that an internal investigation by the Jesuits found claims Father Rupnik had abused about two dozen women and one man sexually, spiritually and psychologically over 30 years were “highly credible’’.

His abusive behaviour, the Jesuits found, covered more than 30 years from the mid-1980s to 2018, from the Loyola Community, a group of nuns in Slovenia to later events at the Aletti Centre. “The accusations and testimonies are highly credible,’’ the Vatican reported earlier this year.

This week, the signatories to the letter to Francis and Vatican officials posted it on a website, “ItalyChurchToo’’, that co-ordinates anti-abuse networks in Rome.

They acted after receiving no reply from Francis to four earlier letters and in response to an apparent push to rehabilitate Father Rupnik.

The signatories include current and former nuns and a psychology professor at the Catholic University of Portugal.

The women are angry that on September 18, the Diocese of Rome released a favourable report on the Centro Aletti. The report said the centre had “a healthy community life free of any particular critical issues’’.

It also raised doubts about Father Rupnik’s treatment. After “conscientiously examining’’ the accusations against Father Rupnik, the report noted “grossly irregular procedures, the examination of which has generated serious doubt’’ about his excommunication.

A week ago, Francis met the current leader of the Aletti Centre, Maria Campatelli, a staunch defender of Father Rupnik, in a private audience. Their meeting was photographed and posted on the Vatican website.

That meeting, the five women who made claims against Father Rupnik said, “leave us speechless, with no voice to cry out our dismay, our scandal”. The timing of the report and the audience were “not accidental’’, they said.

“So-called zero tolerance of abuse in the church” was often followed “by often covert actions, which instead supported and covered up the abusers”, they wrote.

Father Rupnik is the creator of striking, colourful mosaics featuring biblical scenes in a papal chapel in the Vatican, at the John Paul II National Memorial in Washington, at the Saint John Paul Centre outside Krakow, Poland, and at the church’s most famous shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France and Fatima, Portugal.