Lawyer for Rupnik’s Alleged Abuse Victims Decries ‘Total Secrecy’ of Trial

How fair can a trial be if the witnesses aren't even summoned to give testimony? Obviously, the Vatican never had any doubts about acquitting Rupnik.

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

A lawyer representing five accusers of disgraced Fr. Marko Rupnik said that the women have ‘not been summoned’ and don’t even know the names of the judges in the trial.

A lawyer representing five of the women who have accused Father Marko Ivan Rupnik of physical and psychological abuse has decried the proceedings of his trial for neglecting the “minimum” needed for “justice.”

Reports emerged earlier this month from MessainLatino and AdVaticanum that Rupnik was acquitted in his Vatican canonical criminal trial of all charges of “violence” related to his alleged sexual abuse, although the Vatican has denied these reports.

Laura Sgrò, who represents several of Rupnik’s victims, recently lamented the fact that Rupnik’s trial has been conducted in secrecy and that the victims have not had a chance to be heard during his trial.

“It is a trial being conducted in total secrecy. Not only have the victims not been summoned, but my request to participate as legal counsel for the injured party has not even received a reply,” Sgrò told the Daily Compass.

Nor do the victims know the names of the judges in Rupnik’s trial, according to Sgrò.

She said has repeatedly attempted to contact Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), who is overseeing Rupnik’s trial, as well as Monsignor John Joseph Kennedy, secretary of the Disciplinary Section of the DDF. “I’ve always been fobbed off; nobody wants to speak to me,” she said, pointing out that attempts to contact them by both phone and email have been ignored.

Sgrò has stressed that she is not asking for the trial to be publicized but is asking simply for “the minimum necessary information to be shared to ensure justice.” 

“How can the parties to the proceedings – both the prosecution and the defence – be safeguarded in a trial about which absolutely nothing is known?,” she asked.

“There could be a conflict of interest, perhaps linked to past events or hidden animosities, and this would influence the judgement,” Sgrò continued. “How can a trial be credible when the victims do not even know the names of the judges? It is yet another form of violence being perpetrated against these women.”

In a letter to Fernández following a leak about the trial, she denounced “further violence against my clients, whose wounds are still raw and have not even begun to heal.”

“My clients are deeply disheartened and distressed,” she continued in the letter. “They have never been informed of anything — not even through me — regarding this trial, about which all manner of rumours are circulating, and nothing is certain. My clients feel abandoned and betrayed. Once again, they are victims of a system that has never welcomed, protected or comforted them.”

As extensively reported by LifeSiteNews, Rupnik has been accused of sexually, spiritually, psychologically, and physically abusing nuns as well as male victims. The credibility of the well-documented allegations of Rupnik’s serial abuse is deemed to be “very high” by his former Jesuit superiors.

Despite Rupnik’s case being very high-profile, canonical trials before the DDF are kept under seal unless the Vatican decides otherwise. Thus, the Holy See might not disclose any details about the proceedings, which has led some to question the lack of transparency in such a high-profile case.

Alleged victims of the priest have attested that he raped women under his charge, that he told a former nun to get an abortion in case she became pregnant after raping her, and that Rupnik’s sexual abuse is deeply linked to his icons, which used his victims as models.

In 2023, Pope Francis delegated the case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now Dicastery). In October 2023, the DDF announced that it had appointed a panel of five judges to decide the canonical trial of Rupnik. The reported acquittal concerns charges of “violence” in his alleged acts of sexual abuse, as indicated by news outlets in July 2024.

The ex-Jesuit has also become notorious for his distinctive and disturbing “art,” which portrays Christ and the saints with large “black hole” eyes and had remained on display in the Vatican and several prominent churches. These include the Sanctuary of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina in Giovani Rotundo, Italy, which houses the relics of St. Padre Pio, the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. Some of these pieces have since been covered or removed.