Too big to fail: the 7 lives of Marko Rupnik, defended to the bitter end by the Pope

An underground war that is slowly revealing its plots, with interference and all-out defenses that are gradually taking on clearer but also increasingly worrying contours. In recent days, the case of the former Jesuit, theologian and mosaic artist Marko Ivan Rupnik, accused by around twenty women of sexual abuse spanning approximately 30 years, is becoming a litmus test of the balance of power in the Vatican (see Adista News nn. 43, 45/22; 7, 8, 23, 28/23), expelled last July from the Jesuit Order (a measure originating not from the abuses of which the religious is accused, but from «his obstinate refusal to observe the vow of obedience", as stated in the decree of the Society of Jesus) but still a priest, whose stellar prestige seems to continue thanks to powerful support and whose works continue to dot churches and centers, religious and otherwise, all over the world.

“The Aletti Center, a healthy community”

(Cathcon: who do they think they are kidding!)

"A healthy community life free from particular critical issues": with these terms the Vicariate of Rome, led by Card. Angelo De Donatis, summarized, in a statement dated 18 September (reported in full in the attached issue of Adista Segni Nuovi, p. 11) which seems to have embarrassed the bishops of the Diocese, the outcome of the canonical visit to the Aletti Centre, the community and art school created and led by Rupnik. All is well, no problems, in short, for the visitor regarding this community, which legally depends on the Diocese of Rome and as such was placed under canonical investigation last January. The statement from the Vicariate, however - whose register is certainly not the typical, formal one of a "Note" - does not stop at the expressions of (not very) veiled satisfaction for the positive opinion expressed by the visitor in charge, Fr. Giacomo Incitti, professor of Canon Law at the Pontifical Urbaniana University, on the Aletti Center, on which the cardinal vicar card. Angelo De Donatis (of whom Rupnik was a mentor and guide) effectively exercises jurisdiction over him.

The visit to the Center and access to Vatican documents

The note also reports, in fact, with a piqued and revengeful tone, very little in keeping with an official statement, a surprising and unexpected assessment regarding the excommunication that was imposed in 2020 on Rupnik by the then Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of Faith, for having acquitted in confession a woman with whom he had had sexual intercourse. A latae sententiae excommunication - therefore automatic - then quickly and mysteriously revoked, is supposed by the same dicastery or by Pope Francis: "the Visitor - we read in the diocesan note - was able to find and therefore reported seriously anomalous procedures whose examination generated well-founded doubts also about the excommunication request itself." "In consideration of the seriousness of these findings" it declares that it has "submitted the report to the competent authorities". It is necessary to focus on this aspect and make some observations, first of all regarding the jurisdiction of investigation of the canonical visitor.

The visit to the Aletti Center (which "since June 2019 has been a public association of the faithful, linked to the Diocese of Rome", we read on the website), started on 16 January, had the aim of investigating the internal relations of the association , on leadership, on the relationship between it and Rupnik. It is no mystery, however, that the current leadership of the Centre, headed by Maria Campatelli, has always rallied around the former Jesuit, defending him even after his expulsion from the Jesuit Order, and lashing out with violence against the media that have informed about the case (like Domani with the investigations and interviews with the victims of Federica Tourn's abuse).

But the report of the visitor Incitti goes beyond his task, revealing that he has "studied" the "copious documentary material", and expressing a very heavy assessment of the Vatican procedure that led to Rupnik's excommunication. As is known, a dossier that has to do with the serious crime of "acquittal of the accomplice" is placed under pontifical secrecy (art. 27 of the Norms on crimes reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). How did the visitor gain access to these documents? Were they passed on to him under the table by someone (but then the statement would probably not talk about it so explicitly) or can we hypothesize that the Pope exceptionally removed the secret so that the visitor had the dossier available? Both hypotheses (but other similar ones could be made) point towards Francesco running the games for another reason. Last September 15, Francis met Maria Campatelli in a private audience: a meeting that generated surprise and indignation, considering that Rupnik's victims never even received a response to a letter, delivered by hand in 2021, let alone they never got an interview. What could have been the meaning of that meeting if not to put the visitor's evaluation at the center and to agree on the text of the statement with a "partisan" tone?

If this hypothetical scenario is plausible, we should conclude that there was a serious invasion of the field, a crossing of jurisdictional boundaries, aimed at the defense, if not the rehabilitation of Rupnik and his entourage by the Vatican dome.

The attack on the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

In this context there is also a "loser": the Jesuit card. Luis Ladaria Ferrer, until July 1st of this year Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and therefore responsible for the excommunication imposed on Rupnik in 2020. The blatant although implicit attack against him contained in the Note of the Vicariate (the identification of «seriously anomalous procedures whose examination has also generated well-founded doubts about the request for excommunication itself»), must have generated a sense of profound frustration in Ladaria, given that on 21 September his decision to ask the Pope for dispensation from the participation in the Synod on synodality: according to what we read in an AdnKronos publication, Msgr. Luis Marín de San Martín, undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod, limited himself to reporting: "The cardinal has retired. He asked the Pope to be exempted but I don't know the reasons." The decision, however, was generally interpreted as a reaction to the attack he suffered.

The questions that remain and the indignation of the victims

Even if roles and responsibilities in the affair begin to emerge from the fog, some doubts cannot be resolved unless we assume Pope Francis' clear desire to save Rupnik, his work, his economic empire. From whom was that excommunication of 2020 actually lifted, with the reason, according to the Jesuit general Fr. Arturo Sosa, of Rupnik's sudden repentance (which actually never happened, see Adista News n. 7/23)? What role does De Donatis have in this whole affair, since the link with Rupnik was consolidated with his approval of the Aletti Center (started in the early 1990s, then grown under the authority of the Society of Jesus) as a Public Association of Faithful of the Diocese of Rome in 2019? Because Pope Francis, on the occasion of the second trial against Rupnik - concerning abuses that occurred in the 1990s and on his initiative referred the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith rather than the one for consecrated life to which it would have been due, due to an alleged continuity with the first – didn't you decide to waive the statute of limitations, given the seriousness and seriality of the facts?

The statement from the Vicariate with the "verdict" of the canonical visit caused enormous indignation among the victims of Rupnik, who addressed it to Pope Francis - and to some of the cardinals involved: De Donatis, Zuppi as president of the CEI, Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Dicastery for the religious – a touching open letter, coming out into the open with name and surname (see the full text of the letter in the attached issue of Adista Segni Nuovi, p. 10). The events of the last few days "leave us speechless, with no voice left to shout out our dismay, our scandal"; "The Church cares nothing about the victims and those seeking justice; and that the "zero tolerance on abuse in the Church" was only an advertising campaign, which was instead followed only by often hidden actions, which instead supported and covered the perpetrators of abuse", write the signatories, Fabrizia Raguso, associate professor of Psychology, Universidade Católica Portuguesa di Braga, Mira Stare, theologian at the Universität Innsbruck, Gloria Branciani, licensed in Philosophy, Vida Bernard, in Theology and Mirjam Kovac, a doctorate in Canon Law. “In the end there is no place in this Church for those who remember uncomfortable truths,” they say, recalling the Pope's words at the recent WYD in Lisbon (“Everyone, everyone, everyone is welcomed into the Church!”, he said). The victims were therefore "censored for not having been discreet, but for having exposed something repugnant: their pain, the manipulation of those who defrauded them in the name of Christ, of spiritual love, of the Trinity. They exposed their pain because the manipulation and abuse have forever wounded their dignity." The statement from the Vicariate of Rome, they observe, "ridicules the pain of the victims, but also of the entire Church, mortally wounded by such ostentatious arrogance". And the interview granted by the Pope to Campatelli, «in such a familiar atmosphere was thrown in the faces of the victims (these and all victims of abuse); a meeting that the Pope denied them." The victims, is the bitter conclusion, "are left in the voiceless cry of a new abuse".

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