Rupnik is being protected claims leading Synodalist. “If we continue to remain silent, we contribute to continuing to hurt victims in their pain and loneliness"

“If we continue to remain silent, we contribute to continuing to hurt victims in their pain and loneliness. Even selfishly, we should start asking, talking, finding out why, given what we have seen and what remains to be seen, no one is free from being a victim of any type of abuse in the Church.” 

We have just watched live the nauseating spectacle of seeing how victims, all victims of abuse in the Church, are revictimized. Being a victim in the Church is in itself a drama that has lifelong consequences and which, from what we see, seems to matter almost to no one.

The press release, like the one issued by the Vicariate of Rome, is an authentic filigree to say something that highlights the position of whoever issues it and that, in its “perfect?” writing, causes the margins of the text to be full of already very injured people, who continue to be insulted with contempt, indifference and, above all, with permanent doubt about what they denounce from the most absolute invisibility.

Healthy community?

Marko Rupnik, expelled from the Society of Jesus, the aggressor and abuser who, let us not forget, a year after being ordained asked to be chaplain of the community of nuns whom he then subjected to all types of abuse and who were not the only ones, created the so-called Aletti Center that managed its work and business – which was all the same – alongside a small community that, according to the inspection and according to the Vicariate's press release, shows that “there is a healthy community life without specific critical problems. ”

It would be desirable for the same statement to explain what is meant by “healthy community life”, knowing, as we already know, Rupnik’s ability to manipulate. Because we are not talking about someone who is driven by an uncontrollable sexual impulse, we are talking about someone who manipulates, distorts the will and consciousness of his victims and outlines each of his acts of abuse down to the smallest detail.

Free from influence

I wonder to what extent we can think that the people of that community are not manipulated, or at least subjugated, by Rupnik's chameleonic personality, whom they were able to deify and submit to, without being aware that they were and are being directed. by him? Did the inspection take this into account? Furthermore, I dare to ask: to what extent were those who carried out the inspection free from the influx of Rupnik? It's not an exaggeration. The ability of aggressors and abusers to manipulate is immense. They are masters at this.

Many doubts were raised with this inspection and this press release with the transparency so often boasted by the Church because, in addition to hiding and ignoring the victims, in addition to sweeping criminal actions under the carpet – we are dealing with crimes, not the let us forget – of Rupnik, in addition to the way in which he leaves the Society of Jesus – which cost him, but he did what he had to do –, in addition to all this, it seems that the word of a cardinal with the thoughts and attitudes of a prince rancid of the Renaissance Church, has enough power to change reality, modify the facts, rewrite history and continue to abuse his power by abandoning and insulting the victims with his contempt. The damned power in the Church! Who controls this cardinal's power?

A predator

Rupnik is an abuser of consciences, a predator, a sexual aggressor and now, by the grace of a cardinal with an angelic name (Cathcon: I guess she means Cardinal Angelo de Donatis), he has become a protégé. Rupnik can do whatever he wants in Rome, he's unpunished. What victim will dare open his mouth against him? He is the protégé, the pupil, the favourite, the pampered, the valedictorian of a cardinal.

I have been saying for a long time that what will destroy us will not be secularism, nor religious indifference, nor external attacks. What will devastate us is the mismanagement of the reality of all types of abuse in the Church; What will devastate us is the lack of credibility that we repeatedly demonstrate in the face of this reality of abuse; what will devastate us is the lack of testimony we give in favor of the victims; What will devastate us is the ambiguity of canon law in relation to these victims; what will destroy us is the mutism that makes us accomplices; What will devastate us is the silence of some pastors who roar about other issues, but who comment on these facts that concern us – if they do so at all – in low voices, and shaking off the water from their coats.

Highest theological expressions

We're not in the mood for lukewarmness any more, and I think we're too late. However, we mustn't give up. We have to lose the fear of reflecting out loud, of asking questions out loud that reflect the stupor in which we find ourselves in the face of situations like the present one, because this, even though some say it isn't, is also communion.

Because our mouths water when we talk about communion with the highest theological expressions, but the communion of every day, the one that shows the world that we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we leave aside as if it didn't exist, and the most wounded members of that Body, which, let's not forget, was the victim par excellence, are left to fend for themselves. Another comment would be to analyse why, in ecclesiastical spheres, corporatism is so easily confused with communion. It's nothing like that.

If we remain silent, we contribute to continuing to hurt the victims in their pain and loneliness. Even selfishly, we should start asking questions, speaking out and finding out because, given what we've seen and what remains to be seen, nobody is free from being a victim of any kind of abuse in the Church. What's more, in some way, with this penultimate scandal - because the last one is always yet to come - we have all become victims because, in case there was any doubt and from this moment on, what is the point of denouncing in the Church if any abuser and aggressor can become the protégé, the pupil, the favourite, the pampered, the valedictorian of a cardinal?

Cristina Inogés Sanz is a theologian and part of the methodological commission of the Synod of the Catholic Church. 

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