ROME (LifeSiteNews) –– Following news of Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik’s official expulsion from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the disgraced priest’s art center claimed Rupnik had been seeking freedom from the order since January 2023.
On June 15, the general house of the Jesuits in Rome – otherwise known as the Domus Interprovinciales Romanae (DIR) – issued a statement concerning Fr. Rupnik, who has become a familiar name in recent months since news broke in December 2022 of his alleged serial abuse.
Father Johan Verschueren, S.J., stated in the decree that Rupnik had been offered “one last chance as a Jesuit to deal with his past and to give a clear signal to the numerous injured people who testified against him in order to enter a path of truth.” This was after the Jesuit superiors “forced Father Marko Rupnik to change communities and accept a new mission,” stated Verschueren, continuing:
Faced with Marko Rupnik’s repeated refusal to obey this mandate, unfortunately there is only one solution left: dismissal from the Society of Jesus.
Rupnik is to be given 30 days to appeal the decision, as per Verschueren’s statement.
READ: Jesuits expel alleged serial abuser Fr. Rupnik, but he remains a priest
However, in a rare public intervention since the Rupnik scandal first emerged, his Rome-based Aletti Center issued a statement contradicting certain points from the Jesuits’ official communique. The Center stated that the new mission alluded to by Verschueren was a posting to Lombardy, given to Rupnik on March 9, which Rupnik refused to comply with.
But Rupnik’s art center argued that the DIR’s June 15 decree “fails to disclose” that Rupnik had already begun an application to leave the Jesuits as far back as January 21, 2023.
Liberal bishops around the world continue promoting heterodox views on homosexuality, female priests, divorce, contraception, and more — advancing anti-Catholic positions that jeopardize the salvation of souls.
Such bishops often sideline, ignore and even persecute traditional Catholics who simply ask that the Faith be preserved and passed on to their children.
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The application was in line with “all the canonical conditions required,” stated the Aletti Center, and came about because Rupnik’s
trust in his superiors having failed in totality once they had unfortunately repeatedly shown themselves to favor a media campaign based on defamatory and unproven accusations (which exposed the person of Fr. Rupnik and the entire Aletti Center to forms of lynching), as opposed to providing the press with correct information based on acts and documents, in their own possession, demonstrating a different truth from what was being published.
According to the Aletti Center, Rupnik is supported by his fellow Jesuits at the center, who have “also applied for an indult to leave the Society and are waiting for the related procedure to end in order to continue the exercise of their priestly ministry.” Such a claim of support would not be surprising, given that Rupnik has led the Aletti Center since the early 1990s.
Given Rupnik’s alleged request to leave the Jesuits, the Center accused the DIR’s June 15 statement as an attempt to force the situation and move the priest into a situation of forced disobedience. As such, the Center stated that “it is presumable, therefore, that Father Rupnik will remain firm in his already manifested desire to leave the Order, continuing to live this moment in discernment and ecclesial communion.”
The statement closed:
In light of what has happened and is happening, let us also thank the Lord for the faith that history is in his hands and that everything contributes to the good of those who love him.
We therefore ask him [God] to keep us in the ranks of these people
At no point did the statement address the alleged serial abuse committed by Rupnik – instances of which are alleged to have taken place at the Center itself – or the crime of absolving a sexual accomplice in Confession which he was found guilty of committing.
Rupnik has been accused of psychologically, spiritually and sexually abusing 20 of the 40 religious sisters in the Loyola Community in Slovenia, of which he was a co-founder. The revelations and allegations became public in late 2022. After the Jesuit Order issued an open call for any more victims to come forward in December 2022, a further 15 people accused the priest of having abused them, with male victims also coming forward.
Rupnik was also automatically excommunicated and found guilty by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s court of absolving in confession a woman with whom he had sexual relations. He subsequently had the penalty revoked – with much speculation over whether Pope Francis personally intervened to swiftly lift the excommunication.
READ: Pope reportedly intervened to lift excommunication of sexually active, abusive Jesuit priest
Since late 2019, Rupnik has been subject to restrictions on his public ministry and movement. They include having to “avoid private, in-depth spiritual contacts with persons,” being “forbidden to confess women, and to give spiritual direction to women,” and were extended earlier this year to include a ban on leaving the Lazio region around Rome.
The Diocese of Rome launched an investigation into the Aletti Center earlier this year after the reports of Rupnik’s alleged actions, but the results have never been made public.
Support for Rupnik grows
The Aletti Center is not alone in its support for Rupnik, despite the serial abuse that he is alleged to have committed. Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh has also issued public support for Rupnik, stating that he would remain in favor of promoting Rupnik’s unique artwork.
Sacraments are ex opere operato; why not a great religious artist’s work? Rupnick stays on my wall; I don’t approve of what he has done, but his are works of grace, and I don’t want to reject grace. (Shocked that God makes use of sinners? Try the gospels.) https://t.co/6Jq694P9zN
— Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) June 17, 2023
Ivereigh appeared to describe Rupnik as “a great religious artist,” and his statement prompted swift and widespread criticism from Catholics online.
He also argued that Rupnik’s actions should be distinguished from his artwork. Yet, as testified to by an alleged victim of the Jesuit priest, Rupnik’s artwork is intrinsically linked to his abuse.
READ: Former nun details years of ‘satanic’ sex abuse by Jesuit priest Fr. Rupnik
Under the pseudonym “Anna,” a former member of Rupnik’s Loyola Community described how he used his paintings as a way to garner interest in him and to cultivate relationships. “I could not imagine that back then, when he was explaining to me that the bodies drawn on the Kamasutra boards were an art form, he was already a frequent visitor to porn movies,” Domani reported her as saying.
When modeling for Rupnik early in their acquaintance – which involved undoing her blouse – Anna stated that Rupnik kissed her on the mouth on one occasion, stating that this was how he “kissed the altar where he celebrated the Eucharist.”
She further stated how Rupnik’s art was firmly linked to his sexual desires:
It was a real abuse of conscience. His sexual obsession was not extemporaneous but deeply connected to his conception of art and his theological thinking. Father Marko at first slowly and gently infiltrated my psychological and spiritual world by appealing to my uncertainties and frailties while using my relationship with God to push me to have sexual experiences with him.
She added that Rupnik would “request for 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 after confession.”
“He had no restraints; he used every means to achieve his goal, even confidences heard in confession,” she stated.
The priest apparently encouraged “Anna” to engage in “threesomes with another sister from the Community, because sexuality had to be, according to him, free from possession, in the image of the Trinity where, he said, ‘the third gathered the relationship between the two.’”
Over time, Anna stated that Rupnik’s relation with her was marked by a “move from theological justifications for sex to an exclusively pornographic relationship.”