ROME — The lawyer for five women who say they were sexually and emotionally abused by a former Jesuit priest and internationally renowned religious artist on Tuesday issued a scathing denunciation of the Vatican’s secretive legal system in which her clients have been denied access to any details of the trial.
in a letter addressed to Vaticanlawyer Laura Sgro demanded to know the status of the Vatican’s investigation into the matter Pastor Marko Ivan Rupnik Previously, Italian blog Messa in Latino reported on Monday that Rupnik had been acquitted in a canonical trial.
The Vatican has never revealed what charges Rupnik faces in its internal church tribunals, so it’s impossible to know whether he might be exonerated of some while other charges are investigated. Vatican officials said on Tuesday that the case was ongoing.
The Rupnik scandal has become one of the Holy See’s most sensitive issues in recent years amid signs that the Slovenian priest has been protected for more than three decades by his Jesuit superiors and the Vatican hierarchy, including Pope Francis.
Rupnik was one of them The most famous contemporary religious artist In the Catholic Church, stylized mosaics were designed to decorate churches and cathedrals around the world, including in Lourdes and the Vatican.
The scandal erupted in late 2022 when Italian blogs first reported allegations of inappropriate behavior against him by women and nuns dating back to the 1990s, which the Catholic establishment has consistently dismissed.
Jesuit Confess that he has been excommunicated In 2020, he was convicted of one of the Catholic Church’s worst crimes: using a confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had sex.
But the Vatican later declined to prosecute other women’s accusations against him, saying they were too old and that the alleged abuse involved adult women, not minors.
Jesuit Expelling Rupnik In 2023, more than 20 women came forward to say he sexually, mentally or psychologically abused them over more than 30 years, some while they were working with him to create artwork.
He remains a priest and his supporters deny he has done anything wrong. Maria Campatelli, director of the Alletti Center in Rome, which Rupnik founded, said the accusations against him were “defamatory and unsubstantiated” and amounted to a form of media “Lynching.”
Under pressure from suspicions that he had protected fellow Jesuits, Francis waived the statute of limitations on old claims in 2023 so that the Vatican could initiate appropriate normative trials.
It took the Vatican two years to appoint the judge. Late last year, Pope Leo XIV confirmed that the trial had begun. While calling the women who accused Rupnik “victims,” he urged them to be patient.
“The process of justice takes a long time, and I know it is difficult for victims to ask for patience, but the church needs to respect the rights of all people,” Leo said on November 4. “The principle of innocence until proven guilty is also true in the Church. Hopefully the trial that has just begun will bring some clarity and justice to all involved.”
Any news about Rupnik’s trial is being closely watched by the victims and their supporters, given the sensitivity of the case and how its outcome could impact Francis’ legacy.
Sgro, an attorney for the five victims, raised questions about the church’s secretive handling of the case and its refusal to confirm or deny blog reports.
In a letter to the head of the Vatican office that handles sexual abuse cases, Sgro complained that no one from the Vatican responded to her calls or emails seeking information about the case, and that her client was never even interviewed.
“How is what is happening consistent with the concepts of law, truth, justice and equity? Consistent with what the Pope has continually said on behalf of victims of abuse?” Sgro wrote to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, director of the Vatican’s Doctrine Office.
“So once again, your honor, I ask you to answer some simple, basic questions about a criminal trial involving a victim who first filed a complaint more than thirty years ago: Has the trial begun? If so, what is the current status of the case? Who is the judge? What happened to my client’s request to be admitted as an injured party at the trial? Why were these women not called to testify?”
In a standard abuse investigation, the victim is only a third-party witness in the case. They cannot participate in any secret proceedings, they have no access to case files, and they have no right to know whether a canonical investigation has begun, let alone its status.
Only thanks to Francis’ reforms in 2019 were victims allowed to know the final outcome of their cases, but nothing else.
The lack of rights for victims in church trials has been repeatedly condemned by international commissions and inquiries into clergy abuse, which have found that church procedures revictimize victims through their secrecy and opaqueness. Part of the problem is that canon law was never designed to meet the needs of abuse survivors or help them heal. The system’s official goals are institution-centric: to restore justice, rehabilitate criminals, and repair scandals.
french expert The group conducting a wide-ranging review of France’s clergy abuse scandal said in 2021 that the Vatican’s investigation was problematic and violated its obligations as a United Nations observer state and Council of Europe member to uphold the basic human rights of victims.
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