VATICAN INSIDER: INSIDE THE BOLLANDISTS WITH FR. MICHAEL MAHER – CELEBRATED PRIEST ARTIST IS DISMISSIED FROM THE JESUIT ORDER: VATICAN NEWS SITE FEATURES HIS ART

The very good news today is, of course, Pope Francis’ return to the Vatican after 10 days and one surgery in Gemelli Hospital. He did go to St. Mary Major basilica where he prayed before the beloved icon of Mary, Salus Populi Romani. He also made a brief stop at the institute of the Sisters of the Child Jesus who are meeting in chapter, an institute just yards from the Vatican. Francis then entered Vatican City via the Perugino Gate and thanked the gendarmes there for their work.

This entrance to Vatican City is a three-minute walk from my house and is the entrance I use when I want to go to the basilica for Mass or have another reason for being in Vatican City.

VATICAN INSIDER: INSIDE THE BOLLANDISTS WITH FR. MICHAEL MAHER

My special guest in the interview segment of “Vatican Insider” this week is Jesuit Fr. Michael Maher. A native of Milwaukee, Father teaches history at Marquette University. He has a doctorate in history, two Masters in Theology and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy.

If that’s not enough, he is an expert on the Belgium-based Société des Bollandistes, Society of Bollandists, an association of scholars, and historians who, since the early 17th century, have studied the cult of the saints in Christianity. The society is named after the Flemish Jesuit Jean Bollandus. Father Maher talks about that work, about how to separate fact from legend in a saint’s life, the need for scholars to know ancient languages for this work, and what we can learn about societies from reading the lives of the saints. A riveting conversation about a unique institution! Part II next week.

I am unable to download the photos I took of a picnic last night with Fr. Maher and Fr. Tom Sherman on the indescribable rooftop terrace of the Gregorian University but once I solve that issue I will post those pix! In the meantime, here is Fr. Michael from two meetings we had a year ago in Rome:

IN THE UNITED STATES, you can listen to Vatican Insider (VI) on a Catholic radio station near you (stations listed at www.ewtn.com) or on channel 130 Sirius-XM satellite radio, or on http://www.ewtn.com. OUTSIDE THE U.S., you can listen to EWTN radio on our website home page by clicking on the right side where you see “LISTEN TO EWTN.” VI airs at 5am and 9pm ET on Saturdays and 6am ET on Sundays. On the GB-IE feed (which is on SKY in the UK and Ireland), VI airs at 5:30am, 12 noon and 10pm CET on Sundays. Both of these feeds are also available on the EWTN app and on www.ewtnradio.net ALWAYS CHECK YOUR OWN TIME ZONE! For VI archives: go to https://www.ewtn.com/radio/audio-archive and write the name of the guest for whom you are searching in the SEARCH box. Below that, will appear “Vatican Insider” – click on that and the link to that particular episode will appear

CELEBRATED PRIEST ARTIST IS DISMISSIED FROM THE JESUIT ORDER: VATICAN NEWS SITE FEATURES HIS ART

Thursday, June 15 – From Fr. Johan Verschueren SJ, delegate of DIR (Interprovincial Roman Houses and Works of the Society of Jesus): “We inform with a grieving heart that on June 9, 2023, Fr. General dismissed from the Society of Jesus Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik (DIR / SVN). This was done in accordance with canon law, due to his stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.”

As you will see in the Pillar story, there was no mention made of Fr. Rupnik being laicized. We do know that he has 30 days to respond to this punishment for his flagrant ignoring of the sanctions imposed on him by his superiors for sexual abuse of nuns.

What stunned many today was an article on the Vatican News website that featured Fr. Rupkik’s art for today’s Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus! Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus – Vatican News Just one day after he was dismissed from the Jesuit Order!

Why would so many people be stunned by this audacious move? In the event you have not been following Fr. Marko Rupnik’s case in recent months, reading the following will be an eye-opener:

A June 16 Pillar article frames the story: According to a statement from the Jesuits, Rupnik was dismissed for refusing assignments for his rehabilitation after dozens of the priest’s victims (many of them religious sisters) came forward to speak of the years of blasphemous sexual abuse to which he subjected them.

Reporting the news, many outlets noted that while Rupnik has been expelled from the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus did not say he had been laicized — meaning, they said, that he “remains a priest.”

Theologically speaking, everyone ordained a priest always remains a priest no matter what, since ordination imparts an indelible character. But it’s also true in this case that Rupnik also remains a cleric, despite his dismissal as an SJ, though that’s not to say he becomes a kind of wandering priest, unanswerable to anyone.

Canon law actually provides for situations like his that he enters into a kind of permanent/indefinite suspension from ministry unless and until he can find a bishop willing to incardinate him, or another religious order willing to take him.

You can read the whole story here.

 

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CLICK TO DONATE DONATE THERMAL T-SHIRTS TO UKRAINE – JESUIT SUPERIOR SAYS THAT FR. MARKO RUPNIK WAS EXCOMMUNICATED IN 2019

I am much more aware of the need for warm clothing (see first story) because our building has been without heat for 3 days! Our doorman Carlo hinted that it might be back on tonight and I think a lot of us are saying a few ‘Aves’ that this does indeed happen, sooner rather than later. It seems I can’t wear enough layers of clothing, in addition to the blanket I put over my legs as I sit for hours and write. My AC unit does not provide heat as it is supposed to. I have a small electric heater that I place outside the bathroom door in the morning but do not run it throughout the day as electricity costs and arm and a leg here (and that, before the recent big rise in utility bills this year).

As Mom always told us whenever there was a difficult moment or a disappointment in life: Offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory!

And so I am!

I’ll also get a thermal t-shirt to help some Ukrainians who are far worse off than we are! The following is from the website: Elemosineria Apostolica | Città del Vaticano. Polish Cardinal Krajewski heads the newly-named Dicastery for Charity.

CLICK TO DONATE DONATE THERMAL T-SHIRTS TO UKRAINE

The Ukrainian people are experiencing an emergency linked, in addition to the war, also to the lack of electricity, gas and the very harsh cold of winter. We could help them, this Christmas, with the gift of thermal shirts, suitable for maintaining body temperature, for men, women, or children (the ones you use to go skiing).

The Elemosineria Apostolica is already being replenished, anyone who wants, can join this initiative by purchasing and bringing/shipping the shirts directly to this Dicastery within a month, in order to send them as soon as possible, by truck, to Kiev.

Please ship or deliver to:  Elemosineria Apostolica,  Cortile Sant’Egidio  00120 Città del Vaticano ,card. Konrad Krajewski

A bench in the courtyard of the papal charity office:

Furthermore, if you want to make this a truly Christian Christmas, you can make a donation on a crowd-funding platform where the Apostolic Almsgiving has launched a fundraising campaign called: “The Warmth of Solidarity – Thermal T-Shirts for Ukraine”

JESUIT SUPERIOR SAYS THAT FR. MARKO RUPNIK WAS EXCOMMUNICATED IN 2019

I had read last week of the excommunication of Fr. Rupnik, SJ, on three websites that I did not know and I sought but did not get confirmation. One even reported that it was Pope Francis who lifted the excommunication. Therefore, I did not write of it or talk of it (excommunication) last week on Catholic Connection with Teresa Tomeo because the Jesuit communique that had just come out and that we were talking about, did not mention excommunication or confirm the reports.

But now we know: Fr. Marko Rupnik was indeed excommunicated, he repented and it was lifted.

CNA: The Jesuit Superior General, Father Arturo Sosa, has confirmed that Jesuit artist Father Marko Rupnik incurred an automatic excommunication in 2019 for absolving a woman he had sex with, a fact his religious order was aware of but did not disclose until now.

According to a report by the Associated Press, Sosa disclosed this new information Wednesday in a briefing with journalists in Rome.

Abusing the sacrament of confession in this manner is one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “said it happened, there was absolution of an accomplice,” Sosa said. “So he was excommunicated. How do you lift an excommunication? The person has to recognize it and has to repent, which he did.”

Sosa also contradicted the Jesuits’ earlier statement and said the restrictions on Rupnik’s ministry, which remain in effect, dated from this earlier conviction and not the 2021 allegations that the Vatican’s sex crimes office decided to shelve because they were deemed too old to prosecute, the AP reported.

Rupnik, 68, is alleged to have sexually abused members of a women’s institute of religious life in Ljubljana, Slovenia, while serving as the chaplain there in the early 1990s, according to the Italian news outlet Left.it. One of the women allegedly attempted suicide because of the abuse, Left.it reported. A source told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news outlet partner, that at least nine women were allegedly abused.

Those sex abuse allegations were forwarded to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith) in 2021. The dicastery closed the case in October after concluding that a 30-year statute of limitations on allegations of abuse between adults had run out.

That decision, which came to light through Italian media reports earlier this month, has generated a host of questions about why the Vatican office chose not to waive the statute of limitations as it has done in other cases. The office is headed by a Jesuit, has a Jesuit sex crimes prosecutor, and had as its No. 2 at the time someone who lived in Rupnik’s Jesuit community in Rome, the AP reported.