PRIEST REMOVED FROM JESUITS NOW INCARDINATED IN SLOVENIA DIOCESE – THE RUPNIK AFFAIR HAS GONE FROM SCANDALOUS TO CONTEMPTIBLE – UPDATE: RUPNIK ‘PRESUMED INNOCENT’ UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, SAYS DIOCESE THAT WELCOMED HIM – THE SYNOD AND THE RUPNIK SCANDAL

When I read this news yesterday I was left speechless. This is a story so many of us have followed for so long but the very last thing we expected to hear was that Fr. Marko Rupnik, dismissed from the Jesuits for disobedience (and for physical and psychological abuse of nuns in his native Slovenia), has been incardinated (made a priest of) a diocese in Slovenia. To say people are appalled is an understatement.

PRIEST REMOVED FROM JESUITS NOW INCARDINATED IN SLOVENIA DIOCESE

The influential mosaic artist Fr. Marko Rupnik has been incardinated into a diocese in his native Slovenia.

Msgr. Slavko Rebec, vicar general of the Diocese of Koper, said in an Oct. 25 statement to The Pillar: “In response to the question whether the priest Marko Ivan Rupnik has been received (incardinated) into the Diocese of Koper, we answer that the said priest was received into the Diocese of Koper at the end of August 2023.”

“The Bishop of Koper admitted him on the basis of the decree of Rupnik’s dismissal from the Jesuit order and on the basis of Rupnik’s request for admission to the Diocese of Koper, and on the basis of the fact that Rupnik had not been sentenced to any judicial sentence: ‘Everyone who is accused of a criminal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until he is found guilty according to law, in a public proceeding in which he is given every opportunity necessary for his defense’ (Declaration on Human Rights, Article 11.)”

“Until such time as the above sentence is pronounced on Rupnik, he enjoys all the rights and duties of diocesan priests.”

Rupnik has been at the center of a scandal that has shaken the Catholic world since November 2022, when Italian blogs reported that the 68-year-old artist had been accused of spiritually and sexually abusing women religious in the 1990s.

One alleged victim, whose name was withheld to protect her privacy, said that she experienced sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse, which she described as a “descent into Hell.”

READ ON: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/reports-fr-marko-rupnik-incardinated

THE RUPNIK AFFAIR HAS GONE FROM SCANDALOUS TO  CONTEMPTIBLE

It is impossible to absolve Pope Francis of ultimate responsibility for the farcical management of the Rupnik business. Whether by act or omission, he is the author of it.

A disgraced former Jesuit accused of heinous sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse allegedly perpetrated against well more than a dozen victims – most of them women religious – over some three decades, Fr. Marko Rupnik, is now a priest of Koper diocese in his native Slovenia.

Koper’s vicar general told The Pillar that Bishop Bishop Jurij Bizjak agreed to give Rupnik a chance since “Rupnik had not been sentenced to any judicial sentence.”

Rupnik has never been tried for his alleged crimes of abuse. That is because the Vatican department responsible for investigating and prosecuting the crimes of which Rupnik stands accused decided not to waive the statute of limitations so that the accused could stand trial.

A secret Vatican tribunal did find Rupnik guilty, in 2020, of “absolving an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment” – that’s technical Church jargon for granting absolution to someone with whom the absolving cleric had some sort of illicit sexual liaison – and ratified the excommunication Rupnik incurred when he committed that crime, but the excommunication was lifted almost as soon as it was imposed.

Why that case proceeded to trial and a guilty verdict, while the others did not, remains a mystery.

READ ON: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/10/25/the-rupnik-affair-goes-from-scandalous-to-contemptible/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

UPDATE: RUPNIK ‘PRESUMED INNOCENT’ UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, SAYS DIOCESE THAT WELCOMED HIM

(CNA) Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit priest and mosaic artist accused of serious abuses against women, has been accepted for priestly ministry in a diocese in Slovenia.

In a statement to CNA on Wednesday, the Diocese of Koper confirmed earlier Italian and German media reports that Rupnik was now incardinated there.

The statement said that Rupnik was received into the diocese at the end of August.

The local bishop accepted Rupnik’s request to be received into the diocese “on the basis of the decree on Rupnik’s dismissal from the Jesuit order” and “and on the basis of the fact that no judicial sentence had been passed on Rupnik,” according to an English translation of the statement, written in Slovenian, issued by diocese’s vicar general, Slavko Rebec.

READ ON: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/255805/rupnik-accepted-for-priestly-ministry-in-diocese-in-slovenia

THE SYNOD AND THE RUPNIK SCANDAL

Are the commitments for a synodal Church credible when a priest accused of repeated sex abuse finds a new diocese?

READ ON: https://international.la-croix.com/news/from-the-pews-to-the-tweets/the-synod-and-the-rupnik-scandal/18587

JESUIT ARTIST FATHER RUPNIK’S MINISTRY RESTRICTED FOLLOWING REPORTS OF ABUSE ALLEGATIONS

JESUIT ARTIST FATHER RUPNIK’S MINISTRY RESTRICTED FOLLOWING REPORTS OF ABUSE ALLEGATIONS

(CNA – December 5, 2022 – Hannah Brockhaus)

A prominent Jesuit priest and artist had his ministry restricted, reportedly after an investigation by his religious order into allegations of abuse against religious sisters in Slovenia.

The Jesuits said in a statement dated Dec. 2 that the order has barred 68-year-old Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, SJ, from hearing confessions or conducting spiritual direction since the Vatican received a complaint against him in 2021.

The Vatican declined in October to carry out a canonical process due to the statute of limitations, the order said. The complaint did not include minors.

The Jesuit order said the restrictions on Rupnik’s ministry were still in effect and included a ban on leading the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. The priest is also prohibited from engaging in public activities without the permission of his superior.

Rupnik, the director of the Centro Aletti in Rome, was the creator of the official image of the 2022 World Meeting of Families, and for over 30 years has designed mosaic artworks for chapels, churches, and shrines around the world.

The Jesuit is best known for overseeing the renovation of the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, which reopened in 1999 after three years of work.

Rupnik also designed the Redemptor Hominis Church at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., as well as other projects in the U.S.

Despite the restrictions on his public ministry, on Nov. 30, Rupnik received an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná in Brazil.

The Centro Aletti has also continued to publish a video on YouTube every Sunday of Rupnik commenting on the Sunday Gospel. The Diocese of Rome posted a video of Rupnik speaking about eucharistic adoration in February.

According to the Jesuits, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) asked the order to conduct a preliminary investigation into the Slovenian priest, who has been incardinated in the Diocese of Rome since the early 1990s.

Father Marko Rupnik, SJ, in an interview with EWTN in 2020. | EWTN:

A final report was submitted to the DDF, and in early October, the Vatican “found that the facts in question” fell outside the statute of limitations, the Jesuits said.

A source in the Diocese of Rome confirmed Dec. 5 to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish partner agency, that the provincial of the Jesuits had informed the diocese of the precautionary measures against Rupnik and suggested that his pastoral activities in the diocese be limited.

The Diocese of Rome did not perform its own investigation into the allegations against Rupnik, the source said, since the accusations concerned alleged abuse in Slovenia, not in Rome.

The source also confirmed that Rome auxiliary Bishop Daniele Libanori had conducted a separate inquiry, unrelated to Rupnik, into the Loyola Community, which was founded in Slovenia.

During the canonical visitation, which is still ongoing, Libanori received accusations from at least nine women against Rupnik, the source said. Rupnik was reportedly the community’s confessor and spiritual director for a number of years.

Run by law and religion scholars, the Italian website “Silere non possum,” Latin for “I cannot keep quiet,” published a story with reports that Rupnik had abused consecrated women in the Loyola Community.