Ever since the Father Rupnik scandal broke earlier this month — alleging that the Slovenian Jesuit artist serially abused women religious of a community he helped to found — questions have been asked about how it has been handled and whether the Vatican and the Jesuits reacted with the transparency and accountability that both institutions claim to advocate.
Fr Mark Ivan Rupnik, SJ, has been accused of serially abusing half of the Loyola women’s religious community and was temporarily excommunicated in 2020 for the crime of using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.
To what extent have the Jesuits and the Vatican fallen short of the standards they profess? To find out, I spoke with Fr Gerald Murray, a parish priest and canon lawyer of the Archdiocese of New York, who has become known as a solid, reliable and authoritative commentator on Church affairs.
Drawing on his expertise as a canonist, in part one of this two-part interview, we discuss Fr Rupnik’s temporary excommunication, various calls for the head of the Jesuits to step down, and how it is that the Vatican decided not to prosecute Fr Rupnik for serial abuse when just two years earlier he was convicted of one of the most serious crimes in the Church.
Here, then, is Part One of my interview with Fr Gerald Murray.
Diane Montagna (DM): Last week, the Jesuit’s superior general, Father Arturo Sosa, admitted to the Associated Press (AP) that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) had declared Fr Rupnik excommunicated at the end of a 2019-2020 canonical process for the crime of absolving an accomplice in confession. Fr Sosa said that Fr Rupnik acknowledged the crime and repented, and so the excommunication was lifted. Fr Murray, is this the process for lifting an automatic excommunication? Who has the authority to lift it? And would Pope Francis have had to been involved?
Fr Gerald Murray (GM): The remission, or lifting, of an automatically incurred (latae sententiae) penalty of excommunication for the absolution of a partner in a sin against the Sixth Commandment (canons 977 and 1384) is reserved to the Apostolic See, meaning the Pope himself or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Fr Rupnik was declared by the CDF to have incurred this automatic penalty following an investigation of the accusation that he had committed this canonical crime.
Canon 1347 states: “§ 1. A censure cannot validly be imposed unless the offender has beforehand received at least one warning to purge the contempt and has been allowed suitable time to do so. § 2. The offender is said to have purged the contempt if he or she has truly repented of the offence and has made suitable reparation for the scandal and harm, or at least seriously promised to make it.”
Given that the penalty was declared by the CDF to have been automatically incurred, which action is akin to a non-automatic penalty being imposed by the CDF, it is probably the case that Fr Rupnik did not admit guilt for the crime, thus “purging the contempt”, which means abandoning his contumacious and stubborn refusal to make such an admission. If he had “purged the contempt”, he would have simultaneously asked the CDF to lift the automatic excommunication which he would have acknowledged as having been incurred by him at the time he gave the unlawful absolution. No declaration of the penalty of excommunication would have been required as he was repentant, and the penalty would have been remitted in accordance with canon 1358. Declarations of automatic penalties are made so as to induce the offender to cease being contumacious and repent, and also to warn the faithful about the crime of the offender.
Fr Sosa, the Jesuit superior general, told AP that Fr Rupnik did repent. If we are to believe a report on Messainlatino.com, the excommunication was lifted by Pope Francis the very same day the declaration was issued. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that within a few hours of issuing the declaration of the automatic excommunication, the CDF on its own initiative would have lifted the penalty. This scenario presumes that the CDF was in communication with Fr Rupnik, who made an admission of guilt, manifested his repentance, and made known his intention to make reparation, and that the CDF found this to be sufficient grounds for so quickly lifting the penalty of excommunication.
Whatever transpired, in what way did Fr Rupnik “purge the contempt”? What reparation did he promise to make for the scandal and harm he caused? (It is impossible that any adequate reparation to the victim could have been made in the reported time between the issuance of the declaration by the CDF and the lifting of the excommunication.) The CDF and the Jesuit superior general should, in the interest of the fair administration of justice, and in response to the public’s reasonable expectation of accountability and transparency in matters of clerical sexual abuse, give a complete account of what went on. That would include revealing whether the remission of the penalty of excommunication was done by Pope Francis himself, or by the CDF, either on its own or at papal direction.
(DM): Should the sentence of excommunication have been published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the good of the faithful and victim, even if it was lifted?
(GM): The publication of the declaration of the automatically incurred penalty of excommunication contemporaneous to its being handed down by CDF would have served to vindicate the claims of Fr Rupnik’s victim and warn the faithful of the grave offenses committed by a priest who was well known and very visible. Perhaps that was planned, but it did not happen following the remission of the penalty. Nevertheless, the Jesuits did issue restrictions on Fr Rupnik’s priestly activities, which he ignored. The public was not informed of these restrictions, and they were plainly not enforced by the Jesuit superiors, which allowed Fr Rupnik to continue engaging in various restricted activities with unsuspecting participants knowing nothing of the potential danger posed by him.
(DM): Why is the crime of absolving an accomplice in confession considered by the Church to be so grave as to incur excommunication?
(GM): This crime is particularly heinous and is a grave abuse of the sacrament of penance since it involves the offending priest making use of his priestly power to induce someone to commit a grave sin with the promise that he will absolve the person sinning with him, attempting thus to overcome any possible resistance to the priest’s evil intention. The priest is making a mockery of the sacrament and thus further demoralizing and scandalizing the person with whom he is gravely sinning.
(DM): We learned from Fr Sosa’s admission to AP that the restrictions on Fr Rupnik were imposed at the conclusion of the 2019 canonical process, and not, as previously claimed, after the 2021 allegations of abuse of the Slovenian religious sisters—a case that was not prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. There are now calls for Fr Sosa to resign for his lack of transparency about the Rupnik case. Do you think he should step down?
(GM): Fr Sosa gave an interview to the Portuguese language website 7 Margens which was published on December 7, a week before his admission to the AP that Fr Rupnik had been excommunicated for a prior offense involving sexual abuse. In the interview he stated: “We do not hide anything.” He was asked if the departure of Fr Rupnik from the directorship of the Aletti Center was one of the measures taken against him following the 2021 allegations. Fr Sosa replied: “This happened much earlier. He left the Aletti Center more than a year ago for reasons internal to the organization of the center, because he already had been at the job a long time and had many obligations already with his artistic work.”
In truth, Fr Sosa in this interview did hide the fact that Fr Rupnik had been excommunicated in the 2020 case involving sexual abuse of a female religious novice. The 2021 allegations also involved the sexual abuse of religious sisters. It is also hard to believe that Fr Rupnik’s departure from the directorship of the Aletti Center was simply due to his having been there a long time and to his busy schedule, and not to the fact that he had been excommunicated for a serious violation of canon law that involved the sexual abuse of a religious novice. The website of the center still lists him as the director of both the Spiritual Art Atelier and the Theology Atelier.
Fr Sosa also stated that once the Society of Jesus received the 2021 allegations, they “immediately took steps, that were proportionate to the facts. Fr Marko Rupnik was prohibited from hearing confessions, from directing spiritual exercises, from giving spiritual direction and from making any public declaration, teaching and any activity of this sort which had to be authorized his local superior.” Fr Sosa told the AP a week later that in fact the restrictions had been placed upon Fr Rupnik following the 2020 case and were thus not in response to the 2021 cases.
Fr Sosa will have to decide for himself if he should continue to serve as General of the Jesuits following the revelation of his misleading statements.
(DM): Do you believe Father Sosa has violated Pope Francis’s 2019 motu proprio, Vos Estis, which established norms to ensure that bishops and religious superiors are held accountable for how they handle cases of sexual abuse?
(GM): Vos Estis states in Article 1 that, as head of the Society of Jesus, Fr Sosa is obliged to avoid “actions or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil investigations or canonical investigations, whether administrative or penal, against a cleric or a religious regarding the delicts referred to in letter (a) of this paragraph.” Delict means a canonical crime, which includes “forcing someone, by violence or threat or through abuse of authority, to perform or submit to sexual acts; performing sexual acts with a minor or a vulnerable person.”
Fr Sosa, as far as we know from what has been reported, did nothing to interfere with civil or canonical investigations. His incomplete answers at first as to what Fr Rupnik was accused of were misleading, but do not constitute a canonical crime of interference.
(DM): According to Il Messaggero, Fr Rupnik’s crime of using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity occurred in 2015. Are we to believe that the CDF actually shelved the 2021 allegations regarding the Slovenian sisters on the grounds that they dated back to the 1990s and shouldn’t be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations, when what has come to light is that Fr Rupnik’s alleged crimes and abuse spanned more than 25 years?
(GM): The decision of the CDF not to waive the statute of limitations to prosecute the 2021 allegations is baffling given the CDF’s knowledge of his prior canonical conviction. The cause of justice would have been served by pursuing in 2021 these serious charges that, given Fr Rupnik’s canonical criminal record, enjoyed a high presumption of truthfulness. A canonical process would also have perhaps encouraged any other persons who might have been subjected to Fr Rupnik’s depredations to come forward. There is a good chance that Fr Rupnik’s abusive behavior was not confined to the known victims.
The Slovenian religious sisters deserve to have their day in court. If their claims are judged to be truthful, then they will be vindicated by the Holy See and not left in the position of being denied the same access to the Church’s criminal justice system that was granted to other accusers for whom the statute of limitations was waived.
The CDF has the power to waive the statues of limitations now and restart the case brought by the Slovenian sisters against Fr Rupnik. Given what we know now of his moral turpitude, that should happen immediately.