Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik should stand trial, and any involvement Pope Francis had in directing the Vatican or the Jesuits on how the case was to be handled should be made known “sooner rather than later”, leading canonist Fr Gerald Murray has said.
In this second part of the Catholic Herald‘s two-part interview with the New York priest, we discuss the shocking interview an alleged victim of Fr Rupnik recently gave to Italian media, the Jesuits’ version of the events which led to the Slovenian priest’s excommunication, and Pope Francis’ potential involvement in the Rupnik scandal.
Diane Montagna (DM): Fr Murray, one of Fr Rupnik’s alleged victims, a former religious sister of the Loyola community, has spoken out in a new interview with Italian media detailing the sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse she suffered. According to her allegations, the abuse began one year after Fr Rupnik was ordained.
Fr Gerald Murray (GM): The testimony of the former religious sister concerning Fr Rupnik’s actions is deeply concerning. The charges she makes against Fr Rupnik of grave moral turpitude, of unholy manipulation of her conscience and of persistent coercion to participate in gravely immoral acts under a pseudo-religious guise clearly should have merited the setting aside of the statute of limitations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). He should now be prosecuted.
(DM): Amid mounting pressure for greater transparency, on December 18 the Jesuits released a timeline of events surrounding the canonical process that led to Fr Rupnik’s temporary excommunication. According to the timeline, in January 2020, judges unanimously found Fr Rupnik guilty of the crime of absolving an accomplice in confession. However, it wasn’t until May 2020 that the CDF declared that Fr Rupnik “was in the status of excommunication latae sententia”. According to the Jesuit timeline, the excommunication was lifted by a CDF decree “later that month”. Nevertheless, on March 6 2020 Fr Rupnik—who at that point was convicted of a very serious crime—preached a televised Lenten spiritual reflection in the Apostolic Palace for officials of the Roman Curia. How is this possible?
(GM): I am baffled and stunned by the four-to-five-month delay between the finding of Fr Rupnik’s guilt by the panel of judges and the declaration by the CDF that Fr Rupnik had incurred an automatic excommunication. What possible interest of justice was served by this delay? He was found to have been guilty of the double canonical crimes of having sexual relations with a religious sister and then giving absolution to her; and yet he was left free for all that time to possibly commit the same crimes. The decision of the judges was certainly communicated to the leadership of the CDF in January, yet Fr Rupnik was invited to preach a spiritual reflection to members of the Roman Curia in March. Was Cardinal Ladaria in the audience? Did he neglect to inform Pope Francis of the judges’ unanimous decision as soon as he knew about it in January? Did he discuss this regrettable invitation with anyone either before or after the event took place? These and other serious questions need to be answered.
The Jesuit timeline also reveals that, in the case of the June 2021 accusations, the Jesuits commissioned an independent investigation in July 2021. The investigators came to the conclusion in January 2022 that the charges made against Fr Rupnik should be prosecuted, and so informed the CDF. The CDF then took between nine and ten months to issue their decision not to prosecute the case due to the statute of limitations. Why this lengthy delay? Given Fr Rupnik’s punishment by the CDF a year and a half earlier, how was justice served by such dilatory proceedings and by a decision not to proceed due to a legal technicality that could easily have been set aside?
(DM): The Associate Press asked Fr Sosa, the Jesuit superior general, in mid-December what, if anything, Pope Francis knew about the Rupnik case or whether he intervened. Fr Sosa replied that he “could imagine” that Cardinal Ladaria, as prefect of the CDF, would have informed the Pope of such a decision. What do you make of this?
(GM): It is hard to imagine that Cardinal Ladaria would not have informed Pope Francis of the declaration by the CDF of the automatic excommunication incurred by Fr Rupnik, given Pope Francis’s hands-on approach to matters of personnel, and manifestly friendly relations with Fr Rupnik—CWS reports that “in 2016 Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the Centro Aletti to mark the centre’s 25th anniversary. In 2020, Fr Rupnik took the place of Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household, in delivering a Friday Lenten sermon to the Pope and members of the Roman Curia. Fr Sosa as Jesuit General came to know about it. Was Pope Francis not told about this by Cardinal Ladaria? It is incumbent on Cardinal Ladaria to answer this question in the interest of explaining how the remission of the penalty of excommunication came about in what seems to be record time.
(DM): What if the silence from the Jesuits and the CDF is aimed at protecting Pope Francis?
(GM): It is inevitable that Pope Francis will be asked about this case either in a one-on-one interview by a journalist, which he has often granted during his pontificate, or during his inflight press conference on his return to Rome from his Apostolic Journey to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan scheduled for Jan 31- Feb 5, 2023. It would be to the benefit of all those who are troubled by the revelations concerning Fr Rupnik to hear sooner rather than later from Pope Francis about any involvement he may have had in directing the CDF or the Jesuits on how the various matters were to be handled. If Pope Francis had no involvement, then the Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ladaria, should explain what the CDF did and why they did it. The same applies to the Jesuit leadership.
(DM): What do you believe should happen from here?
(GM): As I said, the CDF needs to explain why it did not waive the statute of limitations, as they are empowered to do, regarding the 2021 allegations. The offenses are alleged to have occurred in the 1980s. Given the CDF’s knowledge that Fr Rupnik had been found guilty of subsequent sexual abuse of a female religious novice in the time after he had left Slovenia and moved to Italy, such a waiver would have been rather normal practice according to the modus operandi followed by the CDF in similar cases. The demands of justice would have been well-served if the claims of the Slovenian religious had been adjudicated diligently, keeping in mind Fr Rupnik’s demonstrated history of sexual abuse of a woman religious under his spiritual influence. This scandal will only fester and bring opprobrium upon the Church if answers to important questions are not forthcoming.
(DM): Any final thoughts?
(GM): The Rupnik Scandal reveals that in spite of
assurances of transparency and accountability by Church authorities, the
practice of hiding instances of grave sexual misconduct by priests
continues. Fr Rupnik should stand trial, and if found guilty of sexual
abuse of the religious sisters in Slovenia he should be removed from the
priesthood.