Is the tide turning on the Rupnik case?

Not long ago, Church institutions seemed anxious about taking action on the priest's legacy, but that appears to be changing.

The ongoing case of Fr. Marko Rupnik, the disgraced religious artist and former Jesuit accused of decades of sexual abuse, has taken a number of interesting turns in the last week.

Fr. Marko Rupnik. Image Credit: “A Christmas Special: A dialogue with Fr. Rupnik,” Diocese of Piacenza via YouTube.

For Rupnik’s many alleged victims, and for Catholics around the world who have followed the scandal, the confirmed lack of progress at the Vatican can seem desperately slow.

But away from the Roman curia, the Church’s cultural current seems to be shifting on the priest’s legacy, away from a marked hesitancy to preempt the Vatican trial and towards a phase of reckoning with Rupnik’s alleged crimes and victims.

Not long ago, many Church authorities appeared nervous at appearing to take too firm a position on Rupnik ahead of an outcome in his trial. So what has changed?

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Last week, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, told journalists that his department was in the process of trying to appoint judges to preside over the trial of Fr. Marko Rupnik.

“We must find judges, we’ve made a list,” he said. The issue is in getting qualified candidates to handle such a high profile case. They need to have “certain characteristics, for something so ‘mediatic,’” the cardinal said.

The prefect told The Pillar on Tuesday that the delay was because the dicastery was seeking judges from outside the orbit of Rome.

“We are just trying to find more than three reliable judges outside the dicastery and who do not have offices in the Vatican curia,” Fernández said.

Fernández’s comments came almost two months to the day since his last public update on the progression of the Rupnik case through the canonical process — when he said that the DDF was at a similar point in the process.

The impression among some Vatican watchers, including some victims’ advocates, is that there remains a lack of urgency, if not outright lack of desire, to see Rupnik’s case come to trial and conclusion. However, the cardinal told The Pillar that there was no lack of urgency.

Rather, Fernández said, the DDF is taking the case extremely seriously and is concerned to ensure the highest possible standards in selecting judges. “There will always be suspicions for those who want to think badly,” he told The Pillar, “but we try to offer all possible guarantees.”

The wheels of justice tend to turn at their own speed in Rome, and few would blame the dicastery for taking pains to ensure things are done exactly right, given the high profile of the case. But there is a price in public perception for taking their time.

The sense among many Catholics that “the Vatican,” or at least some forces in it, want shield Rupnik from prosecution and punishment first took hold more than two years ago, when the full litany of his alleged violent and sexual crimes against dozens of religious sisters (and the sacraments) first began to be reported.

The news that Rupnik had been secretly tried, convicted, excommunicated and rehabilitated for attempting to absolve a sexual partner added to the impression, as did his being allowed to remain an expert consultant at various Vatican departments.

Meanwhile, the pope’s own Diocese of Rome issued a report widely perceived as defending Rupnik and even praising those who refused to cooperate with investigations into his alleged abuses.

It took the intervention of the pope’s own Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and an international outcry over Rupnik being allowed to incardinate in a diocese in his native Slovenia after being expelled by the Jesuits to persuade Pope Francis to finally lift the statute of limitations and allow his prosecution to move ahead.

Meanwhile, as clamor grew for his art installations to be removed or covered at prominent Church shrines, there was palpable hesitation to do so. Instead, Church leaders expressed varying levels of shock, sadness, and concern over the allegations against Rupnik but took a cautious “wait and see” approach to making any firm decisions.

As recently as last year, when the Knights of Columbus moved just to temporarily shroud Rupnik’s work in a chapel in the National Shrine of St. John Paul II, prominent figures in the papal orbit denounced the decision as “ideological Puritanism.”

For many watching, it appeared that the Vatican — loosely and generally understood — was distinctly cool on any definitive action to “cancel” Rupnik, with the Vatican’s own Dicastery for Communications continuing to feature his work, and has stridently defended doing so over the objections of his alleged victims.

But if the Vatican seems no closer to closing the Rupnik case, this no longer appears to be having the chilling effect on other Church institutions it once did.

Last week, the Society of Jesus announced a full and formal program to make reparations to the priest’s dozens of alleged victims.

While Church institutions moving to compensate victims prior to a final canonical verdict are hardly unheard of in American dioceses, for the Jesuits to do so with such a globally-prominent case and against the apparently settled disposition of Rome was unusual indeed.

Of course, the Jesuits have long since concluded their own exhaustive investigation into Rupnik’s decades of alleged abuses, one which essentially found them to be proven but beyond the society’s authority to prosecute because of the statute of limitations. So, in that sense they may reasonably deny jumping to conclusions.

Nevertheless, the Jesuits made their own determination in Rupnik’s case in 2023, and chose to expel him but not laicize him — instead allowing him to incardinate in a diocese and continue ministry. In effect, the Jesuits washed their hands of Rupnik, but went no further.

While there’s been no indication the society has had any new information about Rupnik’s alleged crimes since then, something has clearly changed recently, though, to embolden them to do more now.

Similarly, just before the French bishops opened their plenary assembly in Lourdes on Monday, the local ordinary Bishop Jean-Marc Micas announced the boarding over of Rupnik’s prominent mosaics at the shrine.

Rupnik mosaics at Lourdes being boarded up. Image via Vatican media.

The bishop said in a statement that this was a "second step" in reckoning with Rupnik, after his previous decision last year to simply stop illuminating the images at night.

Though he did not indicate how many steps there might eventually be, the bishop was clear it was a decision made in deference to victims of abuse, “those who currently feel unable to cross its threshold” of the shrine if it means passing under Rupnik’s handiwork.

“We prefer to proceed with careful deliberation,” said the bishop, “rather than succumb to external pressures.” It is a statement few are likely to criticize, though it is again worth noting that no obvious circumstances have changed since last July — Rupnik is not markedly closer to actually being on trial at the DDF, and no new information about his alleged crimes has come to light.

Some might wonder, though, if both the decision at Lourdes and by the Jesuits aren’t at least a little influenced by external factors.

It’s possible that both decisions were a kind direct, if unacknowledged, consequence of Cardinal Fernandez’s report on the slow progress of the case, and a sign that away from Rome patience is wearing thin at the institutional level for some kind of resolution.

Another, more aggressive, interpretation of events has been suggested by some, albeit quietly: that high profile institutions like the Jesuits and the shrine at Lourdes feel suddenly comfortable stepping publicly away from Rupnik and towards his alleged victims as a result of the pope’s recent infirmity.

Prior to Francis lifting prescription in October of 2023, amid clamor for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to prosecute Rupnik, the dicastery appeared to suggest that the statute of limitations on Rupnik’s alleged crimes couldn’t be waived — despite the department habitually doing so on other cases with seemingly less voluminous evidence to consider.

Speculation was widespread that the pope directly or indirectly had blocked a waiver to protect Rupnik from being held to account over the accusations against him.

While no proof of any such papal action was ever produced, the suspicion was widespread enough that in 2023 Francis had to explicitly deny he had played any part in blocking Rupnik’s prosecution.

One current theory among some Vatican watchers is that Francis is too ill after his lengthy stay in the Gamelli hospital and continued convalescence in the Vatican for anyone to now fear papal disfavor for stepping out of line about Rupnik.

That is one possible motivation for recent developments. And, it should be said, it could be a real motivation based on a false assumption of Francis favoring Rupnik.

Another, perhaps more likely possibility is that, with the pope continuing in ill health and diminished in vigor, others around the Vatican with a more obvious and demonstrable inclination towards Rupnik are no longer able to rely on proximity to the pope to imply his support, either.

Whatever the real reason — and it could be a combination of several — the tide does appear to be heading out for Rupnik across the Catholic world, even if he remains no closer to facing justice in Rome.