Church cannot declare war on Latin Mass devotees, Cardinal Robert Sarah says

“We, as a Church, cannot declare war on those who devoutly attend Mass simply because they prefer one form over another; this is a shortsighted and entirely ideological stance and, therefore, neither pastoral nor Christian,” Cardinal Robert Sarah said on Aug. 27. “It is harmful and destructive to the Church.”

Sarah, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, spoke to the Italian newspaper Il Giornale last week about the importance of the traditional liturgy, which dates back to the time of Pope Gregory the Great and earlier, and which was celebrated worldwide until the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

After the council, the old liturgy was abandoned, although some priests continued to celebrate it. 

The archbishop of Dakar, Senegal, Marcel Lefebvre, remained faithful to it and founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) under the claim of preserving the Traditional Latin Mass and in opposition to some reforms of the Second Vatican Council. 

The SSPX has twice been declared to be in schism, including in 2026, and its bishops excommunicated.

In the mid-1980s, the Holy See began to relax the de facto ban. 

In his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 authorized all priests to celebrate the old liturgy; in his view, strictly speaking, it had never been abrogated. 

He differentiated between the Traditional Latin Mass as the “extraordinary form” and the new Mass as the “ordinary form.”

Pope Francis revoked his predecessorʼs decision in 2021 and severely restricted the classical Roman liturgy with his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.

“Among the effects of the liberalization of the extraordinary form was the positive influence — I would even say the correction — regarding possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form,” Sarah said. “These abuses are extremely serious acts, yet we must never equate the ordinary form itself with them. Many priests testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them celebrate Mass better.”

“I think Benedict XVI also demonstrated on that occasion a deeply humble and democratic attitude,” the cardinal continued, recalling the 2007 decision. “He wanted to ensure the widest possible dissemination, so that the people of God could decide for themselves, over the decades, which form of living out the faith best suited them. All of this, however, was nullified by Traditionis Custodes, while the pope emeritus was still alive.”

“That did not seem to me a decision that was either sensible or respectful,” Sarah explained. “But Benedict XVI, a man as gentle as a lamb, allowed himself to be humiliated and thus offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer, so as to better identify with Christ’s pain for his Church and to purify it.”

Sarah said that “access to ritual forms that have been recognized and in existence for centuries must never be artificially restricted by means of decrees. If a rite did not serve the faith, it would disappear on its own; if, conversely, it preserves and fosters the faith, we must by no means restrict it, for in doing so we would be restricting the very preservation and spread of the faith.”

Spanish bishop says Ceuta crisis is part of a ‘geopolitical game’

A Spanish bishop known for his work in the media has condemned the using of people as “ammunition” during the Ceuta crisis and said that deportations are not necessarily immoral.

Bishop José Ignacio Munilla of Orihuela-Alicante, was speaking on Radio Maria on his regular show when he said the “tragedy unfolding in Ceuta these past few days is not a migration crisis” but instead is “the weaponization of demographics in the geopolitical game.”

In late July, a surge saw more than 60 thousand migrants cross from Morocco into the autonomous peninsular Spanish city on the North African side of the Strait of Gibraltar, with as many as 141 people thought to have died during the rush.

Although a huge majority of the migrants have been returned, there are still 5000 in Ceuta. 

Speculation has been rife about the cause of the Ceuta crisis, with many believing Morocco orchestrated the movement of people to punish Spain for its rapprochement with Algeria.

Munilla made it clear that he believed the migrants were used as part of bigger geopolitical maneuvering and that they were fed with “false expectations” that caused them to head to the city.

“The moral character of someone who uses their own people as ammunition is repugnant. It is one of the most serious forms of abuse of power imaginable,” he said.

“When citizens cease to be considered people with dignity and become instruments of political pressure, politics has degenerated into cynicism to the highest degree,” he added.

“Each of those who died had a name, a family. They were not pawns on a geopolitical chessboard, they were not diplomatic ammunition. They were people created in the image of God,” said Munilla.

However, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday said he didn’t believe Morocco was involved.

“There’s no information from any intelligence agency that raises doubts over the involvement of Moroccan authorities,” he said to Cadena Ser radio.

“Cooperation with Morocco is frankly positive. I’d like to stress that we need to be aware that this crisis can be resolved only through cooperation – and not through a lack of trust in Morocco, which would only further aggravate the already complex situation we have in Ceuta,” he added.

The morality of deportations

Munilla went on to give his opinion on the controversial topic of deportations, drawing on Catholic social doctrine.

“I believe associations or NGOs that label summary returns as immoral are mistaken,” he said, because the defence of  a “national border is not in itself an act of hostility towards immigrants.”

“The right to emigrate does not equate to an unconditional right to settle in any country regardless of the laws that regulate access,” he said.

However, he said the defense of borders can’t justify actions that violate human dignity.

“Therefore, the true moral response demands upholding two requirements simultaneously: yes to welcoming those who truly need a system of protection with solidarity, and also to responsibly safeguarding our borders. When one of these principles is absolutized to the point of negating the other, we cease to serve the common good,” Munilla said.

“Charity can never be separated from prudence, just as justice cannot be separated from mercy. The social doctrine of the Church does not invite us to choose between one or the other, but to strike a balance. And only from this balance can we confront one of the most complex challenges we are facing today,” he added.

Nunciature: No papal event for Paris Rupnik chapel; bishop confirms pope ordered Vatican News Rupnik ban

The apostolic nunciature in Paris confirmed to OSV News Aug. 31 that no papal celebration is scheduled in the Father Marko Rupnik mosaic-decorated chapel inside its Paris building during the apostolic trip to France Sept. 25-28.

The confirmation came as French media confirmed with the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes that Pope Leo XIV ordered the removal of artwork created by Father Marko Rupnik that was used on the Vatican News website.

In the interview with Paris Match, which was published in full Aug. 31, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas said that during a private audience in June 2025, the pope made his willingness to resolve the matter regarding the controversial priest’s artwork “very clearly.”

Pope Leo, he said, “immediately asked me how Lourdes was handling this issue” and expressed his support for “the way we have approached things,” following Lourdes’ covering of the priest’s mosaics at the entrance of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. 

Pope ‘very determined on this issue’

The pope “pointed out to me that, for his part, he had instructed the Holy See’s communications office to no longer use Rupnik’s mosaics to illustrate publications. He is truly very determined on this issue,” Bishop Micas told Paris Match. 

Before publishing the full text of the interview, Paris Match published an article in its weekly magazine, which was subsequently reported on by the Catholic Herald Aug. 27.

In the interview, Bishop Micas also said the Vatican agreed with his decision to cover all mosaics at the basilica ahead of the pope’s Sept. 25-28 visit to France.

“Already among ourselves here, it seemed absolutely obvious to us that we had to, in one way or another, conceal the mosaics for the duration of the visit, and they will remain covered after his visit,” he said. “And this view was shared by the Holy See’s representatives when they came to inspect the site. We are working on it.”

Bishop Micas had previously confirmed in an interview with the French daily La Dépêche that the controversial artwork would be covered indefinitely. 

However, in that interview, he had not mentioned his discussion with the Vatican. 

Accusations against priest made public in 2022

Father Rupnik is accused of committing spiritual and sexual abuse against some 20 to 40 women. 

The accusations were made public in 2022, and the canonical process is ongoing at the Vatican. 

According to the Aug. 27 report by Paris Match, the chapel of the apostolic nunciature in Paris, where Pope Leo will be staying during his visit, has been closed since the start of the Slovenian priest’s canonical trial. 

The chapel, which features Father Rupnik’s artwork, including a depiction of St. Irenaeus of Lyon, will remain closed until a verdict is announced, after which a decision will be made on whether the artwork will be covered or removed. 

Responding to a request for comment by OSV News, the apostolic nunciature in Paris said that “no celebration by the Holy Father is scheduled during the Apostolic Visit to France.” 

However, the nunciature did not confirm the report about its closure. 

The quiet removal of the artwork from Vatican News, which was used to mark major feast days online, was noted in June 2025, nearly a month after Pope Leo’s election. 

The Vatican press office did not make any formal statement on the change and did not respond to a request for comment from OSV News. 

Former prefect of Vaticans communication dicastery

A year before, when asked by OSV News and America magazine regarding the continued use of Father Rupnik’s artwork, Paolo Ruffini, the former prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, told communications professionals on the final day of the Catholic Media Conference in Atlanta in June 2024 that “as Christian(s), we are asked not to judge.”

He also dismissed calls for their removal, arguing that it was “not a Christian response” and would do little to help victims heal from their abuse. 

However, following the backlash, the then-head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, urged dicasteries to exert “pastoral prudence” in using the artwork, which could “indicate indifference to the pain and suffering of so many victims of abuse.”

After dozens of allegations of abuse surfaced against the Slovenian priest, survivors said the mosaics were a painful reminder of the abuse they suffered. 

One victim, identified as Sister Samuelle, recounted that she was abused by Father Rupnik while installing one of his mosaics.

Motivated to cover mosaics after meeting with abuse victims

Speaking with OSV News July 24, Bishop Micas said he was motivated to cover the mosaics after several meetings with victims of sexual abuse, including victims allegedly abused by the Slovenian priest. 

The victims “told me their story with Marko Rupnik … how he abused them,” he said, noting that they described the abuse taking place in “the process of the making of the mosaics, on the places where they were creating the mosaics.”

“This gave me a new look on our mosaics in Lourdes,” Bishop Micas told OSV News.

The two meetings were “the foundation for my conscience about my responsibility in Lourdes considering these mosaics,” and the positive reaction the decision received “showed me we were right to do what we did at that time. And we have to continue.”

Pope will come to Lourdes as ‘pilgrim, pastor’

Asked the symbolism of the pope’s visit to a place that has covered Father Rupnik’s mosaics, Bishop Micas told OSV News in July the pope “didn’t choose Lourdes for that reason” but “to be a pilgrim in Lourdes and to do what all the pastors of the Church do when they are in Lourdes.” 

Bishop Micas was clear, however, in the sanctuary’s meaning for victims of clerical sexual abuse.

“I realized when I arrived as bishop of the place, that Lourdes is Lourdes because of the Immaculate Conception,” said Bishop Micas, who was installed as the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes in 2022. 

“Lourdes is considered as a very important place by victims of sexual abuse … because with the Immaculate Conception, they can find consolation and maybe some cure.”

Calapan’s new diocese draws on decades-long legacy of priest formation

The newly established Diocese of Calapan is beginning its life as a diocese with a decades-old legacy of priestly formation rooted in three institutions that have accompanied the Catholic Church in Mindoro: St. Augustine Seminary, St. Augustine Major Seminary and St. Augustine House of Spirituality.

Calapan, the capital of Oriental Mindoro province in the central Philippines, became a diocese after Pope Leo XIV elevated the Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan on March 25, 2026. 

The new Diocese was formally erected on August 7, with Bishop Moises Magpantay Cuevas installed as its first bishop.

The transition marks a significant development for a local Church whose pastoral history has been shaped by missionary work, Indigenous communities and efforts to develop a local clergy.

That effort dates back to 1962, when Bishop Wilhelm Josef Duschak, SVD, the second Apostolic Vicar of Calapan, established the St. Augustine Minor Seminary in Suqui, Calapan City. 

Fr. John Racz, SVD, served as its first rector, with 28 seminarians in the first batch.

The seminary was established to nurture vocations and prepare young men for service in the emerging Church of Mindoro. 

In 2000, its high school program was phased out, and the institution became St. Augustine Seminary, offering collegiate formation and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy.

The second stage of formation developed in Tagaytay, Cavite, a city south of Manila known for its seminaries and religious formation houses.

In 1968, the first group of St. Augustine seminarians went to Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay for philosophy studies. 

They initially lived with SVD novices.In 1969, Bishop Duschak established St. Augustine Major Seminary in Tagaytay, with Fr. Ewald Dinter, SVD, as its first rector.

For more than five decades, the seminary has served candidates from Calapan as well as seminarians from other dioceses and religious congregations. 

Its alumni include Archbishop John Du of Palo, Bishop Oscar Solis of Salt Lake City, Utah, Bishop Buenaventura Famadico of San Pablo, Bishop Crispin Varquez of Borongan and Bishop Glen Corsiga of Ipil.

The seminary also has a distinctive connection with Mindoro’s Indigenous communities. 

In 2007, Fr. Gabayno Oybad, a Hanunuo Mangyan, was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Calapan, marking an important milestone in the development of Indigenous vocations.

A third institution complemented the academic formation of seminarians.In 1991, Bishop Warlito I. Cajandig established the St. Augustine House of Spirituality in Subaan, Socorro, Oriental Mindoro. 

Fr. Buenaventura M. Famadico, now Bishop-emeritus of San Pablo, served as its first rector and spiritual director.

The house was established to foster the spiritual and integral formation of priests and seminarians through the Eucharist, Liturgy of the Hours, meditation and spiritual direction. 

Its spirituality draws from the Benedictine principle Ora et Labora prayer and work.

Fr. Andy Peter Lubi, who served as rector and dean of St. Augustine Seminary from 2005 to 2013 and later as rector of St. Augustine Major Seminary from 2015 to 2024, was also among the founding batch of the House of Spirituality.

Together, the three institutions reflect the long-term effort to form a local clergy for Mindoro.

As the Diocese of Calapan begins its new chapter, that formation legacy remains central to its mission. 

The elevation from vicariate to diocese changes its canonical status, but the task of nurturing vocations, forming ministers and serving the people of Mindoro continues.

A long-awaited reckoning: A timeline of the Father Marko Rupnik case

For over three decades, the allegations of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse against Slovenian Father Marko Rupnik were met with cover-ups and bureaucratic delays. 

In a message to a safeguarding conference in October 2025, Pope Leo XIV highlighted the need for safeguarding and transparency within the Catholic Church.

“I renew my appeal that there can be no tolerance for any form of abuse in the Church,” the pope said. 

However, in the time since the allegations against Father Rupnik were revealed to the public during Pope Francis’ pontificate, the case has tested the Catholic Church’s commitment to transparency and tackling the institutional problems that allowed the Slovenian artist to continue his artistic public ministry for years relatively unscathed.

Allegations and revelations

The revelations of the many allegations against Father Rupnik were made public in 2022. However, internal warnings and complaints about the Slovenian priest’s alleged psychological, spiritual and sexual abuses date as far back as the early 1990s.

Details of the abuses that occurred within the now-defunct Loyola Community — a women’s religious community co-founded in the early 1980s in Ljubljana, Slovenia, by Father Rupnik and Slovenian Sister Ivanka Hosta — were published by Left.it, an Italian blog.

Revelations of many allegations of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse against the Slovenian priest and former Jesuit were made public in 2022. 

The naming of judges in a canonical trial was the last official update of the case until 2026. (OSV News photo/Reuters)

Requesting testimonies, the blog published a letter sent to Pope Francis in 2021 by a member of the community who chronicled the alleged abuses by Father Rupnik. 

Several former members had also written to the pope that same year. However, according to Left.it, none received a response.

Noting that there were still a number of members who believed that steps taken to reform the Loyola Community were a form of persecution against Father Rupnik and Sister Ivanka, the anonymous member said she requested exclaustration, or separation from the religious community.

“In its early days, the community was also marked by abuse of conscience, as well as emotional and presumably sexual abuse by Fr. Marko Rupnik,” she wrote to Pope Francis. “As a friend of the foundress and several early sisters, he maintained a close and constant presence in the personal lives of all the sisters and the community as a whole.”

Another testimony was published anonymously in 2022 by Gloria Branciani, another former member of the Loyola Community who later revealed her name publicly.

Branciani described her experience of abuse at the hands of Father Rupnik as “a descent into hell,” noting the use of psychological and spiritual manipulations to appeal “to my uncertainties and frailties while using my relationship with God to push me to have sexual experiences with him.”

She also said that the Slovenian priest would request “more and more erotic games in his studio at the Collegio del Gesù in Rome while painting or after the celebration of the Eucharist or confession.”

According to the anonymous member’s letter to Pope Francis, Father Rupnik was separated from the community in 1993 due to “the extreme suffering of some sisters.” 

However, she noted, his behavior was “practically covered up and not reported, both by the individuals directly involved and by Sister Ivanka, who was aware of them.”

In a separate article, a source told Left.it that Father Rupnik and Sister Ivanka had a heated argument over his removal and that “several sisters left the community to form a nucleus of women who, living at the Aletti Center in Rome, collaborated with him.”

Among those women was Maria Campatelli, who has served as director of the Aletti Center since 2020. The center, a theological and artistic community founded by Father Rupnik in 1991, was inaugurated by St. John Paul II in 1993. 

Jesuits receive complaints

In Rome, Father Rupnik’s mosaics gained prominence. 

Among the well-known works he completed between the late 1990s and early 2000s are the mosaics at the Vatican’s Redemptoris Mater Chapel in 1999, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France in 2008, and the crypt of the Sanctuary of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. 

Other works include shrines in Fatima, Washington and Malta. 

OSV News learned that in 2000, 22 members of the Loyola Community were forced by Sister Ivanka to write letters to Father Rupnik describing their abuse and to forgive him.

“The reason Ivanka gave us when she forced us to write about our experience with Rupnik was that on the occasion of the Jubilee (of the year 2000), we needed to seek reconciliation with him; I don’t know if she then had the letters delivered to Marko,” Fabrizia Raguso, a former Loyola Community member, told OSV News.

According to a chronology published by the Jesuits in 2022, allegations of sexual harassment, as well as an accusation that Father Rupnik gave absolution to an Italian novice with whom he had engaged in sexual activity, were received in October 2018 by the society and an investigation was opened. 

By May 2019, the accusations were deemed credible, and the following month, Jesuit Father Juan Antonio Guerrero, who at the time was the Jesuit’s Delegate of Interprovincial Houses and Works of the Society of Jesus in Rome and Father Rupnik’s superior, imposed restrictive measures against the priest. 

Investigation and brief excommunication

Although not included in the Jesuits’ chronology, The Associated Press reported that the Vatican sent Bishop Daniele Libanori, a Jesuit who at the time served as an auxiliary bishop in Rome, to Slovenia to investigate allegations by members of the Loyola Community. 

A dossier was sent to the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Vatican doctrinal office requested that the Jesuits complete an administrative criminal process. 

By January 2020, the Jesuits’ investigation determined that Father Rupnik had given the absolution to the novice. 

Nevertheless, despite the results of the investigation, Father Rupnik was asked to deliver the first sermon at the annual Lenten retreat for Pope Francis and the Roman Curia in March 2020. 

It is unclear who extended the invitation to the Slovenian priest. 

By May 2020, the Vatican doctrinal office formally confirmed that the absolution had happened and that Father Rupnik had incurred an automatic excommunication. 

However, that same month, the excommunication was lifted after Father Rupnik “admitted the facts and asked for forgiveness,” the Jesuits said. 

“Administrative restrictions were imposed on Fr. Rupnik (for a period of three years), and at the same time he ceased to be director of the Aletti Center,” the Jesuits’ chronology stated. 

Loyola Community accusations

Following his 2019 investigation, Bishop Libanori encouraged the women of the Loyola Community to file their complaints against Father Rupnik to the Vatican, AP reported. 

After receiving the complaints, the Vatican doctrinal office contacted the Jesuit general curia in June 2021, and Jesuit Father Arturo Sosa, the society’s superior general, asked Jesuit Father Johan Verschueren, who succeeded Father Guerrero as the delegate for the Interprovincial Houses, to begin an investigation. 

The investigation, which concluded in January 2022, deemed the accusations by members of the Loyola Community credible, and the findings were sent to the doctrinal office along with a recommendation to begin criminal proceedings against Father Rupnik. 

That same month, Father Rupnik had a private audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Further restrictions on the priest were subsequently imposed by Father Verschueren. However, by October 2022, citing the statute of limitations, the Vatican doctrinal office, now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, declined to carry out the proceedings. 

Public revelations

In December 2022, several Italian blogs and news outlets reported on the accusations of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse by the priest. 

The revelation drew outrage. Survivors and victims’ advocates highlighted the lack of transparency and failures to act, particularly when it came to the abuse of women in the Church. 

In a meeting with journalists a week after the revelations were made public, Father Sosa said Father Rupnik’s case was “a good example of how much we still have to learn, especially about people’s suffering.”

However, he also noted that such cases were “the exclusive responsibility of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.” 

In February 2023, the Jesuits announced that the order had received new testimonies and complaints against the Slovenian priest of abuse that allegedly took place “during various periods from the mid-1980s until 2018, spanning more than thirty years.”

The credibility of the reports, which came from individuals involved with the Loyola Community and the Aletti Center, was “very high,” the Jesuits said in a statement.

The investigative team charged with receiving complaints against Jesuit members, the statement read, “proposed meeting with Father Rupnik regarding these matters, but without success.”

It also stated that after reading the report of the complaints, Father Verschueren imposed further restrictions on the priest, including “forbidding him, under obedience, from undertaking any public artistic activity, particularly in connection with religious institutions.”

Dismissal from Jesuits

Several months later, in June 2023, the Jesuits announced Father Rupnik’s dismissal from the society “because of his stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.”

Despite the restrictions imposed upon him, including restrictions on travel and artistic work, the priest was spotted working on restoration projects for local churches in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in Croatia.

According to the Jesuits, following the investigative team’s report, the priest had been ordered to transfer to a different community and accept a new assignment. 

“Faced with Marko Rupnik’s repeated refusal to obey this directive, we were unfortunately left with only one option: dismissal from the Society of Jesus,” the Jesuits said. 

Less than two months after his dismissal, Father Rupnik was received into the Diocese of Koper in his native Slovenia. 

Two days after that revelation, on Oct. 28, 2023, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis ordered the DDF to review the case and lifted the statute of limitations. 

According to the Vatican press office, the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors “brought to the pope’s attention that there were serious problems in the handling of the Fr. Marko Rupnik case and a lack of outreach to victims.”

“The pope is firmly convinced that if there is one thing the Church must learn from the Synod, it is to listen attentively and compassionately to those who are suffering, especially those who feel marginalized from the Church,” the press office said. 

Calls for mosaics’ removal

Branciani and another former Loyola Community member, Mirjam Kovac, revealed their identities at a press conference in Rome in February 2024 and appealed to Pope Francis to investigate the handling of the accusations, which they said were not taken seriously by officials. 

In the aftermath, more survivors not only detailed their alleged abuse, but also called for the removal of the priest’s artwork from churches and public spaces around the world, saying that it was a painful reminder of the abuse they suffered. 

One of Father Rupnik’s alleged victims, Sister Samuelle, said she was abused while they were installing a mosaic. 

In the wake of the allegations, several shrines that featured his artwork, including the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington and the Holy Family Chapel at the Knights of Columbus’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the basilica in Lourdes, opted to cover the mosaics out of respect for his alleged victims.

Others, including the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, said they were not considering removing his mosaics.

Vatican’s use of priest’s artwork

The Vatican also faced backlash as the Vatican News website and social media continued to feature Father Rupnik’s artwork in some of its articles, despite the alleged victims’ requests.

Attention on the perceived inconsistency grew when Paolo Ruffini, now the outgoing prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, defended the use, saying that removing Father Rupnik’s art from public space was “not a Christian response.”

Addressing communications professionals attending the Catholic Media Conference in Atlanta in June 2024, Ruffini argued that removing the artwork before a decision was made in the canonical proceedings was “not good.”

“Do you think that if I put away a photo of an art from … our website, I will be more close to the victims? Do you think so?” he pressed an OSV News journalist at the end of his answer. When an answer was given in the affirmative, Ruffini responded: “I think you’re wrong.”

Several days after Ruffini’s comments, Boston Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, then-president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, called on the dicasteries of the Roman Curia to exercise “pastoral prudence” in displaying Father Rupnik’s artwork.

Such prudence, the cardinal said, would “prevent displaying artwork in a way that could imply either exoneration or a subtle defense” of a person alleged to have committed abuse, “or indicate indifference to the pain and suffering of so many victims of abuse.”

“Pope Francis has urged us to be sensitive to and walk in solidarity with those harmed by all forms of abuse. I ask you to bear this in mind when choosing images to accompany the publication of messages, articles, and reflections through the various communication channels available to us,” the cardinal said.

In spite of the recommendation, two days later, Ruffini’s office posted a photo of an icon created by Father Rupnik depicting St. Irenaeus of Lyon for its June 28 “saint of the day” feature on Vatican News.

Canonical trial preparations

The conclave that followed Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, delayed the canonical proceedings against Father Rupnik. 

However, less than a month after Pope Leo’s election, Vatican News quietly removed Father Rupnik’s artwork from its website. 

Ahead of Pope Leo’s apostolic trip to France Sept. 25-28, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes told the Paris Match weekly magazine that Pope Leo told him in during their June 2024 audience that the pope “had given instructions to Holy See communications to no longer illustrate publications with Rupnik’s mosaics,” commenting that Pope Leo “is very determined on this issue.”

In July 2025, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, provided a significant update. Speaking to a group of journalists in Rome, the prefect revealed that a panel of judges had been established to oversee the canonical trial. 

The panel, the cardinal said, “is made up of judges who are all independent and external to our dicastery.”

Three months later, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a statement saying that five judges were formally nominated to the tribunal.

“The panel of judges is composed of women and clerics who are not members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and who hold no office within any of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia,” the dicastery said in a statement published by the Vatican press office. 

“This has been done in order to better ensure, as in every judicial proceeding, the autonomy and independence of the aforesaid tribunal,” it said. The communique did not reveal a formal date for the trial.

The naming of the judges was the last official update of the case until 2026. 

A lack of information

On July 20, the Italian website Messainlatino.it, citing “persistent and highly authoritative sources,” reported that a verdict had been reached and that Father Rupnik was acquitted.

The rumor prompted Laura Sgrò, a civil and canon lawyer representing five of Father Rupnik’s alleged victims, to issue a letter to Cardinal Fernandez criticizing the DDF for the lack of information about the case, noting that neither she nor her clients were informed if the trial had even begun. 

The lack of information, she wrote, was a “further violence against my clients, whose wounds are still raw and not even minimally healed.”

“They have never received any news, not even from me, about this trial, about which everything is whispered and certainly nothing is known,” she added.

The rumored acquittal prompted a statement from the Vatican press office, calling the reports “completely unfounded” and confirming that the canonical trial is still under review.

“During the proceedings, as with any judicial process, no information regarding the ongoing investigation may be shared in any way out of respect for the process itself and to avoid causing harm to all those involved in the matter, as has occurred in recent days,” said Vatican’s Press Office Director Matteo Bruni. 

“Should the panel determine that it requires further information, it will take the necessary steps on its own initiative to obtain it,” he said. 

While the statement provided the first official confirmation that the trial had begun, its outcome remains uncertain due to the secrecy of the proceedings.

Holy Cross school dispute was 'hatred at its worst'

The priest who helped shield schoolgirls during the 2001 Holy Cross dispute has said the "hurt" of that ordeal could happen again.

Speaking on the 25th anniversary of Holy Cross, Fr Aidan Troy said that possibility is what keeps him "devoted to dialogue, to conversation, to searching for justice and to caring about people".

Fr Aidan said the sectarian dispute was "hatred at its worst".

It happened in north Belfast when loyalist protesters tried to block the route taken by Holy Cross school pupils and their parents, who were from a Catholic background, on their walk to class.

Following the initial violence, the police and Army put up crash barriers to keep a corridor route open for the Holy Cross pupils.

The images of terrified schoolgirls having to run the gauntlet between lines of armoured police officers in order to get to their primary school were beamed around the world.

Protestants claimed that Catholics were attacking their homes and said the school protest was their way of highlighting their concerns.

Stones, bottles, fireworks and even a blast bomb were thrown during weeks of unrest.

Fr Aidan, who was parish priest in Ardoyne at the time, told BBC News NI that "none of us want to see hatred".

"Hatred is the rawest, smelliest, most awful thing that anyone stood in the middle of," he said.

"We tell this story, not to blame, but to say we are capable of doing this to each other but let's make a commitment that we never will and we'll not do anything that would ever demean the way those children were demeaned."

He said people come up to him and thank him for what he did.

"I am embarrassed because I didn't do anything really worthwhile," he said.

"People say their children were given dignity. They were worth going in the front door and they were worth fighting for, and you stood in the middle of the road and said so."

He added that "it could happen again".

"The shock of Holy Cross, even 25 years later, probably means that it probably would not happen [again] in the exact same form, but the hurt is always possible," he said.

About 100 pupils needed counselling due to their daily ordeal, according to principal at the time, Anne Tanney.

Speaking to the BBC in 2004, she said that even as an adult, she was traumatised by the protests .

"There were times when I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep," she said. "I used to bite my lip, trying not to cry in front of the children."

Bishop of Barbastro-Monzón will offer his resignation rather than renounce the Virgin of Torreciudad

The Bishop of Barbastro-Monzón, Mons. Ángel Javier Pérez Pueyo, has stated that he would offer his resignation rather than sign an agreement that would require relinquishing the original image of Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad from its former hermitage. 

The prelate made public this Monday, August 31, an extensive letter ahead of the temporary return of the statue to the church on September 5, coinciding with the 47th Pilgrimage of the Virgins of Ribagorza and Sobrarbe.

“Rest assured that your shepherd would never sign that improbable plunder of your dignity. In such a case, I would place my office at your disposal out of loyalty to our people,” affirms Pérez Pueyo, who maintains that the image must return definitively to the place where it was venerated for centuries before its transfer to the new sanctuary more than fifty years ago.

The bishop also assures that the diocese has renounced any financial compensation and does not claim “the governance of the new church, nor its assets, nor its accounts, nor the entities or companies linked to its management.”

Instead, he reveals that he has asked Pope Leo XIV to recognize Torreciudad as an international sanctuary directly dependent on the Holy See, so that Rome may oversee its economic and pastoral reality.

“But there is one thing that this Diocese cannot surrender, to which children cannot renounce: their Mother, Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad,” he maintains.

The Virgin will return to the old hermitage on September 5

The statement is published just days before the original image temporarily returns to the old hermitage of Torreciudad, in the province of Huesca, Aragon.

It will be next Saturday, September 5, during the 47th Pilgrimage of the Virgins of Ribagorza and Sobrarbe. Pérez Pueyo presents the day as an especially significant event in the history of the diocese.

“After more than fifty years, our Mother returns home,” he writes.

The bishop recalls that the image was venerated there for centuries and that José Escrivá and Dolores Albás with their son Josemaría Escrivá also came to that hermitage to pray for his life when he was a child.

Pérez Pueyo encourages the faithful to come with their families and announces that on that day he will publicly reaffirm his commitment to defend the permanence of the image in its historic location.

The diocese questions how the image left the hermitage

The bishop also introduces an argument regarding the circumstances under which the statue left the old hermitage.

According to him, in recent years the diocese has compiled historical and legal documentation which, in his view, prevents interpreting that transfer as a voluntary renunciation of the custody of the image or its original location.

“Its authorized departure, in accordance with the law, is not recorded in the archives of either the Chapter or the Diocese,” affirms Pérez Pueyo.

The prelate also insists on distinguishing between the pontifical commissariat established for Torreciudad and the governance of the diocese itself.

On October 9, 2024, Francis established a plenipotentiary pontifical commissariat for the Torreciudad complex, entrusted to Mons. Alejandro Arellano Cedillo, Dean of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.

“This commissariat falls upon Torreciudad; not upon the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón. This particular Church has not been placed under commissariat,” Pérez Pueyo now emphasizes.

The words Francis addressed to him

The statement also returns to the support that, according to Pérez Pueyo, he personally received from Pope Francis during the conflict.

The bishop assures that Francis became aware of the matter during the ad limina visit in December 2021. Later, in a handwritten note dated July 13, 2023, the Pontiff reportedly wrote in his own hand: “Do not yield.”

Pérez Pueyo also recounts that on September 18, 2024, Francis again asked him personally in St. Peter’s Square: “Ángel, have they brought the Virgin down yet?”

Finally, he recalls another handwritten note from Francis, dated October 13, 2024, in which, according to the bishop, the Pope warned him of “the mafia intrigues that are underway” surrounding the conflict.

Pérez Pueyo had already made these words public during a homily delivered in September 2025. He now assures that those indications “weigh” on his conscience as bishop and shepherd of Barbastro-Monzón.

“Firmness is not the enemy of communion”

In his letter, Pérez Pueyo turns to the biblical figure of Eleazar, narrated in the Second Book of Maccabees, to explain his refusal to accept a solution he considers contrary to the diocese’s rights over the image.

The bishop also criticizes the evolution of the pontifical commissariat, which, in his assessment, would have ended up functioning “as a kind of mediation” between the parties.

At the same time, he expressly acknowledges the work carried out over five decades in the new church of Torreciudad.

“I bless and thank all the spiritual good that, for fifty years, has been accomplished in the church of Torreciudad: the confessions, the conversions, the families, the vocations, and the Marian devotion of pilgrims who have come from so many places in the world,” he writes.

And he adds: “I desire that Opus Dei may develop there its charism and its mission. I desire that Torreciudad be a great universal center of Marian evangelization.”

Pérez Pueyo considers that continuity compatible with the direct dependence of the sanctuary on the Holy See and with the return of the image to the old hermitage.

“Firmness is not the enemy of communion. […] The peace of the Church cannot be built upon the silence of a people asked to renounce its own memory,” he concludes before summoning his diocesans for the day of September 5.

Full statement of the Bishop of Barbastro-Monzón

On the occasion of the return of Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad to her hermitage-sanctuary

Children of Eastern Upper Aragon:

I address you all as shepherd of this flock of Barbastro-Monzón, a land of enormous dignity bathed in the blood of martyrs and deeply marked by so many saints who have dwelt here.

There are days when the history of a people seems to pause to remember who it is and where it comes from. September 5 will be one of those days. On the occasion of the 47th Pilgrimage of the Virgins of Ribagorza and Sobrarbe, the original image of Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad will once again cross the threshold of her hermitage-sanctuary. After more than fifty years, our Mother returns home.

She returns to the place where for more than a thousand years entire generations of this land visited her. She returns to where our elders could look upon her closely, touch her, kiss her, dress her, sing to her, carry her in procession, and entrust to her the harvests and illnesses, the children, the tears, and the hope. She returns to where José Escrivá and Dolores Albás also brought their young son Josemaría to implore for his life. She returns to the home this people guarded for centuries and whose image they knew how to protect even at the risk of their own lives in times of persecution and war.

We are not facing just another transfer or a simple day of celebration. There is something much deeper. A people is once again encountering a part of its own history, and a Mother is returning to the place where her children learned for centuries to call her Mother. That is why this day belongs to the memory of our Diocese and to the simple faith of so many generations who preceded us.

From that memory also springs the petition this particular Church has upheld with patience and firmness: that Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad remain in her hermitage-sanctuary, her millennial home. We are not asking for privileges. We are asking that the Mother remain in her home of always, where she always was for more than a thousand years until she was taken away fifty years ago.

So that no one may confuse this petition with interests of another nature, the Diocese has renounced everything else. We have renounced any financial compensation. We do not claim the governance of the new church, nor its assets, nor its accounts, nor the entities or companies linked to its management. We have asked the Holy Father Leo XIV that Torreciudad may be recognized as an international sanctuary directly dependent on the Holy See, and that the Holy See itself may oversee its economic and pastoral reality. But there is one thing that this Diocese cannot surrender, to which children cannot renounce: their Mother, Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad.

Our Mother must return to her home

I must also recall something that belongs to the truth of these facts. On October 9, 2024, Pope Francis established a plenipotentiary pontifical commissariat for the Torreciudad complex. That commissariat falls upon Torreciudad; not upon the Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón. This particular Church has not been placed under commissariat and retains intact the pastoral responsibility that corresponds to it over the faith of its people, its popular piety, and the memory entrusted to it.

During these past years the Diocese has gathered historical and legal documentation which, in our judgment, prevents considering the departure of the image from its hermitage as a voluntary renunciation by this people of its custody and its original place. Before the present church, before the controversies, and before any of us, for more than a millennium this image was united to this land and to its hermitage. And its authorized departure, in accordance with the law, is not recorded in the archives of either the Chapter or the Diocese.

Pope Francis personally became aware of this matter. During the ad Limina visit of December 2021, he received our concern for popular piety and for the ecclesial rootedness of Torreciudad. Later, in a handwritten note dated July 13, 2023, he wrote to me in his own hand: “Do not yield.” And on September 18, 2024, upon meeting him in St. Peter’s Square, he again asked me directly: “Ángel, have they brought the Virgin down yet?” A few weeks later, in another handwritten note dated October 13, 2024, he expressly warned me of “the mafia intrigues that are underway” surrounding this matter, just as I warned in the homily in our cathedral precisely one year ago.

Those words weigh upon my conscience as bishop and shepherd of this people of Barbastro-Monzón. Especially when what is at stake touches the dignity of a small and humble people, which perhaps has no power, but has memory; which perhaps has no influence, but has history; and whose dignity is no less for being small.

That is why I have thought so often of the elder Eleazar. The Second Book of Maccabees recounts that, at ninety years of age, they tried to offer him an apparently prudent way out: it was enough to pretend. He could save his life and avoid suffering. But Eleazar understood that such an appearance would leave the young an example of cowardice, and he preferred to die rather than stain his old age and dishonor the faith he had received (cf. 2 Mac 6, 18-31).

There are moments when a shepherd must ask himself not what is most comfortable for him, but what example he will leave to his people. I cannot sign, approve, or consent to a formula that deprives this people of Barbastro-Monzón of their own Mother, or that turns her into a stranger who makes occasional visits to her children from someone else’s house.

In these months I have watched how the plenipotentiary commissariat over the Torreciudad complex was transformed into a kind of mediation between them and the diocese, as if this people that awaited justice had to accept renunciations instead of defending its rights, which was precisely the reason the commission for Torreciudad was established. Firmness is not the enemy of communion. I bless and thank all the spiritual good that, for fifty years, has been accomplished in the church of Torreciudad: the confessions, the conversions, the families, the vocations, and the Marian devotion of pilgrims who have come from so many places in the world. I desire that this good may continue and grow. I desire that Opus Dei may develop there its charism and its mission. I desire that Torreciudad be a great universal center of Marian evangelization. Precisely for this reason we have asked that the new sanctuary depend directly on the Holy See.

But communion does not imply yielding to dignity. Charity does not oblige one to call just what is unjust. The peace of the Church cannot be built upon the silence of a people asked to renounce its own memory.

On September 5, Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad will return for a day to her hermitage-sanctuary. I encourage you to come with your children and your elders. Come as they came for more than a thousand years from every corner of this diocese to that small hermitage to touch the Virgin, kiss her, and entrust their lives to her. That day we will be together, as a diocesan Church, around Our Mother in her home. Our hands will once again touch her and our lips will kiss her. And our serene and prayerful presence will express, without the need to raise our voices, that a people may be small, but it does not lack memory, dignity, or a Mother.

That same day, before all of you, I will reaffirm my commitment to the people of Barbastro-Monzón to honor the memory and dignity of these thousand years of history, and also that of our neighbor who during the civil war protected Our Mother so that she would not be destroyed and later returned her to her home. That commitment leads me in conscience to be unable to deprive our diocese of its beloved Mother, and rest assured that your shepherd would never sign that improbable plunder of your dignity. In such a case, I would place my office at your disposal out of loyalty to our people.

Like the elder Eleazar, I prefer to leave an example of fidelity to our history and our memory, rather than betray what one has the duty to guard.

Truth may suffer, but it does not perish

I commend myself to Our Lady of the Angels of Torreciudad and to your prayers, so that the Lord may grant me to be worthy of this martyrial and enormously dignified land of which I have the honor of being shepherd.

Ángel Javier Pérez Pueyo

Bishop of Barbastro-Monzón

Cardinal Ouellet wins defamation lawsuit against the woman who accused him of sexual assault

The Superior Court of Quebec, in Canada, has ruled in favor of Cardinal Marc Ouellet in the civil defamation lawsuit he filed against Paméla Groleau, the woman who accused him of sexual assault. 

Judge Martin Castonguay has declared the accusations against the prelate unfounded and has ordered Groleau to pay him 100,000 Canadian dollars.

The ruling, issued this Monday, August 31, concludes that Ouellet was the victim of defamatory statements and strongly questions the credibility of the complainant. 

According to CTV News, Castonguay determined that Groleau changed her account several times regarding the physical contacts she attributed to the then-archbishop of Quebec.

The judge questions the credibility of the complainant

Groleau had accused Ouellet of touching her without her consent on three occasions between 2008 and 2010, while she was in formation or working as a lay pastoral agent for the Church in Quebec. 

During the legal proceedings, however, she modified her version of events and ultimately maintained that only one of those episodes constituted, in her view, sexual assault.

The woman explained that the previous encounters should be understood as part of a progression of increasingly intrusive behaviors. 

The court rejected this explanation and cast doubt on the reliability of her account.

The episode that Groleau ultimately identified as sexual assault allegedly occurred during a priestly ordination in 2010. 

According to her account, Ouellet greeted her and then slid a hand down her back until touching the upper part of her buttocks. The cardinal denied that this had occurred.

Castonguay gave credence to Ouellet’s version and noted, among other factors, that the then-archbishop was holding the episcopal crosier at the time the contact described by Groleau supposedly took place. 

The ruling concludes that the woman’s account of that episode was neither credible nor reliable.

The magistrate also points to the modifications introduced in the complainant’s account and concludes that she acted with recklessness that amounted to “malice” toward the cardinal.

The defamation trial was held last March. During the hearings, other women also testified, attributing inappropriate behavior to Ouellet. 

One of those testimonies addressed an incident in 2014 in which the cardinal himself acknowledged having slipped a 50-dollar bill into the neckline of a woman’s sweater. Ouellet described that gesture at the time as a “clumsy mistake” and denied any sexual intent.

The impact of the accusation against Ouellet

The case gained international attention in August 2022, when Ouellet was named in a class-action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec that included numerous complaints of sexual abuse attributed to clergy and other individuals connected to the Church.

Castonguay considers that the inclusion of the cardinal’s name in that proceeding aggravated the damage to his reputation. 

The class-action lawsuit included numerous cases of sexual abuse against minors, whereas Groleau was an adult at the time of the encounters she attributed to Ouellet.

On August 21, Canadian justice approved the agreement under which the Archdiocese of Quebec will pay 31.5 million Canadian dollars to resolve that class-action lawsuit, which covers claims of abuse occurring over more than eight decades.

The accusations against Ouellet had previously been examined by the Holy See. 

After receiving the complaint, Francis commissioned a preliminary investigation from Jesuit Jacques Servais.

In August 2022, the Vatican announced that, after receiving Servais’s conclusions and conducting further consultations, Francis had determined that there were insufficient grounds to open a canonical investigation for sexual assault against Ouellet, who was then prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.

The cardinal publicly denied the accusations and, months later, decided to take the matter to civil court to defend his reputation.

Ouellet will donate the 100,000 dollars

Ouellet filed the defamation lawsuit in December 2022 and sought 100,000 Canadian dollars. The prelate maintained that his purpose was to publicly restore his reputation after the impact caused by the accusations.

During the trial held in March, he insisted that he did not intend to obtain any financial benefit from the proceedings, but rather to defend his honor and integrity.

The Superior Court of Quebec has now awarded him the full amount claimed. Ouellet has announced that he will donate the 100,000 dollars to organizations dedicated to combating sexual abuse suffered by Indigenous people in Canada.

Eighty years, four months and a we'll see

Juan José Omella is eighty years old and four months today and remains archbishop of Barcelona with all his faculties. 

He submitted his resignation in early April 2021, days before turning seventy-five; on 21 April last he turned eighty. 

Five years and five months later there is no coadjutor, no administrator, no date. 

The Church has withdrawn his vote to elect a Pope and keeps him in charge of more than two million baptized faithful, which clarifies which of the two tasks Rome considers truly delicate. 

Canon 401 has been waiting five years in Barcelona for someone to read it.

That Francis extended it made sense. 

Omella presided over the Episcopal Conference until March 2024, was his man in Spain and, as the cardinal himself recounted at the Sagrada Familia last July, the Argentine Pope had repeatedly told him that retirement would come at eighty. 

Francis set the date and did not live to see it. 

What makes no sense is that Leo XIV, elected with the aura of a canonist, doctor from the Angelicum, professor of canon law at the seminary of Trujillo, of whom it was said that on the very night of his election he asked two cardinals to help him restore law to the Church, let that date pass without a gesture. 

He let it pass. 

Then came the trip that Omella himself had gone to ask for in Rome: the tower of Jesus Christ, the Mass of 10 June, the nominal thanks to the cardinal in the homily. 

The archbishop’s circle had been announcing for a year that this would be his last milestone. It has turned out to be one more milestone. 

Almost three months have passed since the Pope took off from El Prat and in Barcelona the same man who presented his resignation when Leo XIV was bishop of Chiclayo is still in charge.

Canon 401 is, if one wishes, a gentle canon: it asks the bishop to resign and entrusts the Pope to provide “taking into account all circumstances.” 

Five years allow for many circumstances. 

But the norm is not a dead letter when Rome wants to apply it. Francis accepted Schönborn’s resignation on the exact day he turned eighty, appointed an apostolic administrator and Vienna waited for its archbishop without anything collapsing. 

Leo XIV accepted Zornoza’s in Cádiz in November and appointed an administrator the same day. 

There are formulas. They are known. They are used when one wants to use them.

What is happening in Barcelona is not a legal gap but a decision not to decide, and it has an explanation that is less legal than arithmetic. Barcelona is the only see in Spain in which every pole of ecclesiastical power has a candidate and none has a majority. 

Omella and Cobo have been pushing Roselló, the Mercedarian from Pamplona, since October; he publicly ruled himself out with faint conviction and was received in private audience in February. 

The ecclesial Catalanist movement, according to El Mundo, has been moving pieces in Rome for months for an identity-profile candidate, Planellas or the abbot of Montserrat. Those hoping for a shift recite Saiz Meneses and Conesa. 

And from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to Roman sources this medium published in October, Jordi Bertomeu emerges, with the support he retains in Scicluna’s circle and that of Cardinal Barreto. 

A Pope whose Spanish appointments have so far consisted of combining sensibilities and not upsetting anyone finds himself in Barcelona with the fact that any name displeases three out of four. 

The elegant solution is not to appoint. And the most elegant way not to appoint is for the incumbent not to leave.

Allow me a hypothesis that aspires to nothing more. 

Appointing Bertomeu to Barcelona is, with the baggage he carries, little short of unthinkable; half the Curia would say so out loud if asked and the other half thinks it without being asked. But appointing someone else is to say no to Bertomeu, and saying no to the man who in a single cause has been investigator, drafter of the penal precept, spokesman and liquidating commissioner carries a price that no one in Rome has wanted to calculate. 

Between Bertomeu’s displeasure and the vacancy in Barcelona, someone has concluded that the vacancy is cheaper. 

In Rome saying no always costs more than saying nothing. Hence the see is governed by the Curia’s most ancient method, which is to let time do its work: while Omella holds on, no one has said no to anyone. 

A Pope who came to restore law to the Church should not fear the anger of a dicastery official. Unless he does fear it.

Meanwhile, Omella does not govern as an interim. In July he dismissed the directors of the priestly residence for mismanagement, according to Crónica Global; he continues to appoint, sign and preside. 

He is eighty years old and four months, with one Pope who told him to leave at eighty and another who came to restore the law. 

Canon 401 applies throughout the Church. 

It only remains for it to reach Barcelona.

Instructor who called Prevost's investigation in the Lute case a "joke" reappears at the top of the Verbo Encarnado

The Capuchin Giampiero Gambaro, the canonist who acknowledged before the victims of Chiclayo the negligence in the case file handled under Robert Prevost — now Leo XIV — and who later informed them of the case’s closure through the dispensation from the clerical state, now assumes the General Procuratorship of the Institute of the Incarnate Word by appointment of the pontifical delegate, Monsignor José Antonio Satué. 

A move that revives the unanswered questions about how Gambaro came to be involved in the most delicate case of the current pontificate.

On August 20, the new governance structure of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), under Vatican intervention and the full authority of the pontifical delegate, Monsignor José Antonio Satué, Bishop of Málaga, was made public. 

Through two decrees, dated July 25 and August 18 and ratified by the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life, Satué has formed a general council with a majority of members external to the institute. 

Among the names, one is especially familiar to InfoVaticana readers: Father Giampiero Gambaro, OFM Cap., who assumes the role of general councilor responsible for the Procuratorship area—that is, precisely the area that manages the institute’s legal relations with the Holy See, as stated in the official document of the IVE general government and on its institutional page.

This is no ordinary institute. 

The IVE, founded in Argentina, is one of the largest and youngest congregations in the Church, with a missionary presence in sensitive settings such as the Latin parish of the Holy Family in Gaza, and it carries a Roman intervention process with pending complaints that the official documents of the new government do not address: neither the care of victims, nor the status of investigations, nor their outcomes.

Who is Giampiero Gambaro?

According to the official biography published by the IVE itself, Gambaro was born in Genoa in 1959, is a Capuchin, holds degrees in Business Administration and Canon Law, and has served as general bursar and provincial minister of his order in Genoa. 

His recent career has been in Peru: pro-rector of the Catholic University Sedes Sapientiae in Lima, dean of its Faculty of Law, member of the legal-canon law commission of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, and judge of the Diocesan Tribunal of Carabayllo (North Lima).

It is worth emphasizing: Gambaro was not a man of Chiclayo. His base was Lima, 770 kilometers from the diocese governed by Robert Prevost. 

And yet, it was he—a Genoese Capuchin based in the capital—who received from the Bishop of Chiclayo, Monsignor Edinson Farfán, the commission to conduct, as delegate, the penal administrative process against Eleuterio Vásquez González, “Father Lute,” in the abuse case involving minors that directly implicates the management of the now Pope Leo XIV.

The instructor who confirmed the negligence

The recordings revealed by InfoVaticana in November 2025 showed a surprisingly candid Gambaro with the victims. 

In the meeting of April 23, 2025 at the Carabayllo bishop’s office—two days after the death of Francis—the instructor described the preliminary investigation ordered by Prevost in 2022 as a “joke”: “Very poorly done. Many errors. A lot of superficiality.” 

He acknowledged that the accused “was practically not asked anything” and that “he answered nothing”; he admitted errors “even in the Holy See”; he called the dismissal by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “most strange” on the grounds of an alleged Peruvian civil statute of limitations that canon law does not contemplate; and he read in full Prevost’s precautionary decree of April 3, 2022, demonstrating that Lute was never suspended from public ministry, contrary to the official version spread by the diocese, by Elise Ann Allen’s papal biography, and by Prevost himself. 

In another passage, Gambaro even admitted that Lute himself acknowledged the facts although “he does not consider them a crime”.

That candor, incidentally, does not fit the profile of someone close to Prevost. 

Someone who acknowledges before the victims—recorder running, though he was unaware of it—that the case file handled by the current Pope was a “joke” does not seem to be protecting anyone out of personal affinity. 

The question, then, is different: if he was not a man from Prevost’s circle or from the diocese of Chiclayo, who proposed Gambaro and why?

The false exit: the dispensation as case closure

Because Gambaro’s candor had a very precise limit. In that same April meeting he presented to the victims as “good news” that Lute had requested voluntary dispensation from the clerical state, and he conveyed to them that this grace would end the case: there would be no further investigation, as also noted by the organization SNAP in its analysis of the recordings. 

On November 11, 2025, he communicated by letter that the dispensation had been granted by Leo XIV on September 15, even though the victims had formally asked the Pope not to grant it until there had been an investigation and a sentence. 

In his letter—also circulated among religious sisters of the diocese and reported in the Peruvian press—Gambaro maintained that the receipt and handling of the complaints had been carried out “in accordance with Canon Law.” 

The same man who had called the investigation a “joke” now certified its regularity.

The underlying thesis—that the dispensation from the clerical state extinguishes the cause—is not an invention of Gambaro. It has an author and a doctrine: Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and commissioner in the Sodalicio case, theorized it in writing in the journal Ius Canonicum of the University of Navarra, in a 2021 academic article titled “The CDF’s praxis on the dispensation from clerical obligations: n. 157 of the ‘Vademécum’” (Ius Canonicum, 61/122, pp. 733-765). 

There Bertomeu defends as “consolidated praxis” offering the accused the possibility of requesting dispensation, expressly recognizing that this route “interrupts the investigative proceedings or the ongoing process without reaching a conclusion regarding the guilt or innocence of the accused,” and he legitimizes it by invoking the bonum commune. 

That is: closure without truth or sentence, elevated to method.

But this construction is legally untenable as an excuse not to investigate. 

High-ranking Vatican judicial officials have confirmed to InfoVaticana that the dispensation from the clerical state does not exempt from investigation or process for the purposes of the Church’s institutional responsibilities: the grace affects the cleric’s personal status, not the Church’s duty to clarify the facts, repair the victims, and purge the responsibilities of those who managed—or mismanaged—the case file. 

The Vademécum of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith itself regulates dispensation in n. 157 as a right of the accused, not as a mechanism for archiving. 

To tell three women who reported abuses suffered between the ages of 9 and 14 that “the case is over” because their abuser has voluntarily returned to the lay state is, quite simply, false.

The questions raised by the appointment

How was the instructor of the Lute case chosen? Formally, he was appointed by Bishop Farfán. 

But Farfán went looking for a Capuchin from Lima, with no apparent ties to Chiclayo, at the most delicate moment: with SNAP filing its Vos estis complaint on the eve of the conclave and with Prevost’s name in all the betting pools. 

Was it an autonomous choice by the diocese or was it suggested from Rome?

What relationship exists between Gambaro and Satué? Both are canonists with a curial-disciplinary profile. 

Satué was an official of the Congregation for the Clergy between 2015 and 2021—the dicastery that handles a large part of matters relating to the clerical state—and since January 10, 2025, by appointment of Francis, pontifical delegate of the IVE with full powers. 

As the religious press has highlighted, Satué has formed his team with “people of his complete trust.” 

That Gambaro is among them just months after steering the closure of the Lute case indicates, at the very least, that Rome knows this Capuchin well and trusts him with cases of maximum sensitivity. Did they already know each other when Gambaro took on the Chiclayo investigation? 

Did Francis ask his trusted men in disciplinary matters for a safe name for a case that threatened a cardinal who was papabile?

Is the IVE Procuratorship the reward or the continuation? The area Gambaro assumes is precisely the one that articulates the legal relationship of the intervened institute with the Holy See, in a process where there are also pending abuse complaints awaiting response. 

The pattern is worrying: the canonist who managed the closure without trial of the Lute case now manages the legal front of another major case file.

This is not about presuming bad faith on anyone’s part. It is about noting that the Church still fails to explain who decided what in the Lute case: who chose the instructor, who pushed the dispensation route, who decided not to carry out the pending evidence, and who communicated to the victims—through a sheet without seal or case number—that everything was over. 

As long as those questions remain unanswered, every new appointment of the protagonists of the case file will inevitably be read in light of that false closure. The victims, meanwhile, still cannot even see the documents of their own case.

The victims of Chiclayo continue to wait for truth, justice, and reparation. 

And the Church continues to owe them.

'Healing after harm': Māori Anglican bishop to open Christchurch cult awareness conference

Te Waipounamu's first wahine Māori Anglican bishop will open a cult conference in Christchurch in October, as survivors and their supporters work to raise public awareness about the physical, psychological and spiritual harm caused by coercive high-control groups.

Bishop Susan Wallace (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Wai) will speak on the first day of the Decult conference at the Christchurch Town Hall, with Race Relations Commissioner Dr Melissa Derby (Ngāti Ranginui) opening day two.

The Labour Weekend symposium - "Voices of Courage: Pathways to healing and justice"- is aimed at improving support services for cult leavers, examining how police, politicians and social services respond to cults and exploring opportunities for legislative change, following a sold-out inaugural event in 2024.

More than 50 local and international speakers were booked to attend the conference, including US psychologist Dr Christine Marie, who infiltrated a polygamist sect to expose a self-proclaimed prophet in the Netflix series Trust Me: The False Prophet, and US cult expert Rachel Bernstein, who is also visiting Auckland to offer the only New Zealand training in cult recovery therapy.

They will discuss topics including children's rights, Māori in cults, tradwives, Christian nationalism, megachurches, modern slavery and purity culture.

Wallace is the third Pīhopa ki Te Hui Amorangi ki Te Waipounamu, the second wahine elected to the office of Pīhopa and the first to wear a moko kauae.

She told RNZ she was drawn to the conference because of the focus on survivor voices, dignity and pathways to healing and justice.

"It's about stories that deserve to be heard, about healing after harm and it's about restoring dignity where it has been diminished," she said.

"As a Māori, as a Christian leader, I carry a deep belief that communities should be places where people are safe. Every person carries mana, they deserve to be treated with respect, care and tenderness.

"When people have experienced harm or coercive control it matters that there are spaces they can be heard without being dismissed and where healing can begin."

Although she did not have special cult expertise, Wallace said she came with respect for the courage of people who shared their stories and a willingness to listen, learn and make things better.

"I'm very new to this kaupapa. The more I read the more I hope there's an opportunity, not just through this conference but through raising awareness about the impact on those who have left cults, in the hope we can open up spaces where they will be believed, that they know and understand that their story matters, their dignity matters," she said.

"When we listen with humility and care, we can help to make a space for healing, understanding and hope."

In 2024 the Anglican Church apologised to survivors of abuse in its care, after the Royal Commission report detailed widespread sexual abuse at Anglican schools, children being locked in solitary confinement in Anglican children's homes, sexual abuse by Anglican priests and forced labour at homes for unwed mothers.

Wallace said the church was doing its utmost to be survivor-focused and supportive, with an independent body overseeing ministry standards and formal complaints processes.

"We're working very, very hard to right those wrongs and to ensure that anyone who is spending time with us can feel safe, loved and treated with compassion," she said.

Decult director Anke Richter said many conference speakers had been members of groups including Gloriavale, Jehovah's Witnesses, Falun Gong, Destiny Church, Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), Exclusive Brethren (Plymouth Brethren Christian Church), The Truth (Two by Twos) and Korean Bible cults.

She said the conference would address serious public health and human rights issues.

"More than 50,000 New Zealanders are current or former members of coercive high-control groups," she said.

"Many survivors have lasting complex trauma and other health problems after leaving, especially those who were born and raised in a cult, which is the majority. Most don't get the professional help they need and are faced with stigma.

"Their suicide rate is 10 times higher than for the average population. Cults have a hidden death toll."

In July a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups made 39 recommendations focused on outlawing coercive control in groups, safeguarding children and preventing harm.

Former Geelong Revival Centre member Ryan Carey, who campaigned for the landmark inquiry, will also speak at the Decult conference.

Richter said the dynamics of coercive high-control groups were the same in New Zealand as in Australia so she hoped politicians were taking notice.

"We are very excited to bring Ryan to this conference, he is a hero. Not only did he and his wife leave the Geelong Revival Centre, but they became whistleblowers, went public and lobbied politicians, all while dealing with their own cult trauma. I hope their experience starts a conversation with politicians, policy-makers and lawyers in New Zealand," she said.

The conference runs from 24-25 October and will also be live-streamed worldwide, followed by a survivor support day.

New bishop outlines mission for Military Ordinariate

Bishop Stuart Hall was consecrated on Saturday as Bishop of Australia’s Military Ordinariate at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral, where he was ordained a priest almost 40 years ago and more recently served as dean. Source: Melbourne Catholic.

The occasion offered a unique opportunity for clergy, the lay faithful, civic leaders, dignitaries and members of Australia’s defence force to gather in celebration and thanksgiving.

Archbishop Peter A Comensoli was the principal consecrator of Saturday’s Mass and was joined by co-consecrators Archbishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra and Goulburn, and Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP of Sydney. 

Cardinal Mykola Bychok CSsR of the Ukrainian Eparchy of Sts Peter and Paul in Melbourne also concelebrated the Mass, along with other bishops and priests from Melbourne and around Australia.

In his homily, Archbishop Comensoli encouraged his brother bishop to preach Christ’s peace “with constancy and fidelity”.

“Peace was the first word of the risen Christ, given to his disciples for them to receive. But it was given with an immediate call for them to be sent out with it,” Archbishop Comensoli said.

“You are not asked to undertake this ministry from your own strength. You are, rather, being asked to remain close to Christ, to listen for his voice, and to allow his peace to shape the way you teach, shepherd and serve.

“For the serving personnel and their families of the Australian Defence Force – to whom you are sent – who experience separation, sacrifice, and sometimes grief in their mission, may you embrace the prophetic calling to work for the work of peace.”

Bishop Hall offered words of gratitude and at times teared up as he acknowledged all those who have nurtured his faith since childhood. 

The new bishop also paid tribute to his predecessor, Bishop Emeritus Max Davis, and Archbishop Christopher Prowse, who has served as Apostolic Administrator of the Military Ordinariate over the past five years.

Bishop Hall also outlined his mission for the Military Ordinariate.

“My mission is simple,” he said, “[it is] to bring the peace of Christ to every corner of the ordinariate, and to make it known to every member of our military community – from recruits to recent veterans … the peace Christ gives is not merely the absence of conflict; it is the peace that steadies the heart, gives courage in uncertainty, strengthens us in hardship, teaches us to give, and enables us to remain faithful, whatever lies before us.”

Nuncio to Romania: Pope John Paul I is an example of reconciliation

On August 26, the Church marked the liturgical memorial of Blessed Albino Luciani - elected Pope John Paul I in 1978. 

A few days later on August 30, Archbishop Giampiero Gloder, Apostolic Nuncio to Romania and the Republic of Moldova, celebrated a Mass in honor of the Pope at the parish of the Most Holy Redeemer in Bucharest, Romania.

For the occasion, the Vatican Foundation presented the parish, known as the “Italian Church,” with an icon and a relic of Blessed Luciani. The Romanian association “Pope Luciani” also took part in the celebration.

Hundreds attended the Mass, which was concelebrated by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bucharest, Archbishop Aurel Percă; Archbishop Emeritus Ioan Robu; the parish priests of the two communities of the “Italian Church,” Father Daniel Bulai and Father Marius Bereșoaie; and other priests from across the country.

A witness to reconciliation

In his homily, Archbishop Giampiero Gloder, who is of Venetian origin, recalled the emotion surrounding the evening of Pope John Paul I’s election, highlighting three themes from his general audiences: love, faith, and hope.

“Blessed Pope John Paul I,” he emphasized, “had a great heart, capable of offering attention, a smile, and a gesture of love to every person he encountered, with a generous openness toward others, especially toward that portion of the People of God that the Lord had entrusted to him.”

“In a world like ours,” the archbishop continued, “where personal interests, the thirst for power and domination, conflict and division seem to characterize relationships between individuals and between states, the witness of the concrete love of Blessed John Paul I is also an encouragement for us to always be instruments of reconciliation, communion, and love.”

A gift to the Italian Church

The delegation of the Vatican Foundation “John Paul I” included Vice President Stefania Falasca, postulator of the cause for the canonization of Blessed Luciani; Lina Petri, a member of the Foundation and the Pope’s niece; and Gloria Concordia, a collaborator of the Vatican Foundation.

Among those present were also the Italian Ambassador to Romania, Laura Aghilarre; the president of Catholic Action in Romania, Codruța Fernea; representatives of various lay associations of the Archdiocese of Bucharest; and the Ambassador of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to Bucharest, Roberto Musneci. The Romanian association “Pope Luciani” was represented by its president, Cristina Grigore, and its secretary, Daniel-Marius Filip.

The icon of Blessed John Paul I, placed on the altar and blessed by Apostolic Nuncio Gloder, will remain on display throughout the week in the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer and will then be placed next to the icon of Saint John Paul II.

The Vatican Foundation “John Paul I” has donated an icon and a relic of Blessed Albino Luciani to the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Bucharest

At the conclusion of the Eucharistic celebration, Stefania Falasca presented the parish priest of the Italian Church with an ex indumentis relic of Blessed John Paul I, together with the decree certifying its authenticity.