Letters From 22 Women Documenting Rupnik’s Abuse Add to Allegations

And yet, the Vatican is reported to have acquitted him in a secret trial that called no witnesses from among the alleged victims of his abuse.

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

 One former sister said the superior of the community had ‘forced’ the women to write letters to Fr. Marko Rupnik describing their relationship with him and what he had done to them as well as forgiving him.

Previously undisclosed letters from 22 women alleging abuse by Father Marko Rupnik are part of the record of the ongoing canonical criminal trial of the disgraced priest.

In the letters, “22 women described alleged spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse by Father Rupnik while he was their spiritual director,” OSV News reported Thursday. The letters were written by the former members of the Loyola Community that was spiritually advised by Fr. Rupnik.

Fabrizia Raguso, a former sister of the Loyola Community, explained the origin of the letters. She is the only victim cited in the case who has agreed to be identified publicly.

“During Easter 2000, Ivanka Hosta, superior of the Loyola Community, forced us to write a letter to Marko Rupnik in which we described our relationship with him, what he had done to us, and then to forgive him,” Raguso told OSV News.

“The reason Ivanka gave us when she forced us to write about our experience with Rupnik,” Raguso continued, “was that on the occasion of the Jubilee (of the year 2000), we needed to seek reconciliation with him; I don’t know if she then had the letters delivered to Marko.”

The letters describe similar abuse to that already publicly reported by Gloria Branciani and other victims of Rupnik, according to Raguso and other sources.

As extensively reported at 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.

Since the scandal became public in December 2022, the Rupnik case has been marked by alleged cover-up while his artwork has received continued promotion despite its intimate link to his alleged abuse. 

Rupnik was automatically excommunicated in 2020 and found guilty of absolving in confession a woman with whom he had sexual relations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s court. The penalty was swiftly revoked, leading to much speculation over whether Pope Francis personally intervened to lift the excommunication. The Pontiff had denied any involvement acting on Rupnik’s behalf.

Previous investigations into Rupnik had been dropped in October 2022 by the DDF, and according to Messa in Latino, this was directly due to Pope Francis not lifting the statute of limitations.

Francis had invited the priest to give a Lenten homily to the Curia in March 2020, just weeks after the DDF judges “unanimously” ruled Rupnik had incurred his automatic excommunication due to having absolved a sexual accomplice in confession. The Pope was accused of intervening for Rupnik by lifting, reportedly “within hours,” the excommunication that Rupnik incurred for that offense.

Francis was further accused of ignoring a number of letters sent to him by alleged Rupnik victims. 

Despite Rupnik’s case being very high profile, canonical trials before the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) are kept under seal unless the Vatican decides otherwise. Thus, the Holy See may not disclose any details about the proceedings, leading 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.

MessainLatino and AdVaticanum reported July 20 that a five-judge panel has acquitted disgraced former Jesuit cleric and favorite of Pope Francis of all allegations of “violence” in his alleged acts of sexual abuse.

However, the Vatican denied reports that Rupnik was acquitted in his Vatican canonical criminal trial of any charges.

“Reports concerning any decision whatsoever by the judges handling the case of the Reverend Marko Ivan Rupnik are entirely unfounded,” Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement.

The ex-Jesuit has also become notorious for his distinctive and disturbing “art” that 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 Giovanni Rotondo, 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.