Jesuit artist under restrictions after allegations

by CNS · December 6, 2022

St. Edith Stein is depicted in a detail from a mosaic by Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel at the Vatican. Father Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate chapels in the Vatican, all over Europe, in the United States and Australia, is under restricted ministry after being accused of abusing adult nuns in Slovenia. (CNS photo courtesy of Centro Aletti)

By Cindy Wooden, CNS – Slovenian Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate chapels in the Vatican, all over Europe, in the United States and Australia, has been barred from hearing confessions or offering spiritual direction after what the Jesuits described as complaints about his ministry.

Italian news outlets reported the complaints were accusations of spiritually and sexually abusing adult members of a religious order of women in Slovenia.

At the beginning of October, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “closed the case” because the statute of limitations had expired, said a note from the Jesuit headquarters dated Dec. 2.

The restrictions on Father Rupnik’s ministry “remain in effect as administrative measures even after the response of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,” said the statement published by the Jesuit superior’s delegate for “the interprovincial houses and works of the Society of Jesus in Rome.”

The Jesuits also have barred Father Rupnik from accompanying people in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and have said he must have the permission of his superior before “exercising public activities.”

Father Rupnik lives and works at the Centro Aletti, an international community of artists and theologians, both women and men, in Rome.

The Jesuit’s statement did not provide details about the allegations beyond saying they regarded “his way of exercising his ministry” and that “no minors were involved.”

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith received a complaint about Father Rupnik in 2021, the statement said, and asked the Jesuits to conduct a preliminary investigation, which they entrusted to a religious from another order. “Various people were invited to give evidence” and a report was submitted to the Vatican.

Multiple Italian news outlets reported that the accusations involved allegations of “psychological and sexual abuse” against women belonging to the “Skupnosti Loyola” or Loyola Community, a new religious community in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in the early 1990s when Father Rupnik served as a spiritual adviser.