2022 Interview with the Jesuit General about Father Rupnik

Father Arturo Sosa in Portugal

Jesuit General to 7M about the Rupnik case: “We don’t hide anything”

Arturo Sosa in Portugal: “We don’t have to publish every case. One of the things we all have the right to as people is a certain amount of privacy.” 

“Any case like this is very painful, (but) we don’t hide anything,” says Father Arturo Sosa in a short interview with 7MARGENS and Rádio Renascença, in what is the first reaction of the Jesuit General to the case of suspicions about Father Marko Ivan Rupnik.

Regarding this member of the Society of Jesus, who is also an artist and theologian, news reports have emerged reporting suspicions raised by several nuns from the Loyola Community, that Rupnik had committed spiritual and sexual abuse against them. At the end of a five-day visit to Portugal, during which he visited the country's various Jesuit communities, as well as some of the institutions linked to the Society (schools, parishes, university centers, etc.),

Arturo Sosa was at the Padre António Vieira University Center (CUPAV) in Lisbon, where he celebrated the late afternoon mass on Wednesday the 7th and participated in a meeting with university students. In his homily, he recalled the six Jesuits and two female employees who were martyred at the University of Central America in El Salvador, who were murdered in 1989, saying that they believed it was possible to end the civil war in the country, a cause for which they gave their lives.

In this interview, the Venezuelan Jesuit general assures that the measures taken against Father Rupnik are still in force. And he adds that conduct like this is unacceptable.

7MARGENS – The Society's statement on the case came out after the first news reports. Why did it take so long to get information about what was happening?

Fr. ARTURO SOSA – First, I have to say that for the Society of Jesus any case like this is very painful. Second, we do not need to publish every case. One of the things that we all have the right to as people is a certain privacy: you have to make public statements when it is public; when it is not public, there is nothing to do and that does not mean hiding it. We do not hide anything.

In this case, it seems important to me to emphasize a few things. One, that there are no minors involved. In other words, these are matters between adults. Second, we did not receive the complaint directly, but from the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF], the request to conduct an investigation because they had received the complaint. Precisely in order not to hide it and to do it as transparently as possible, we sought out researchers who were not from the Society of Jesus.

Then, we delivered the report to the CDF, which had requested this preliminary investigation. A preliminary investigation is not a process that ends with a sentence, it is a first approximation of the case. We waited a long time until we received the news from the Congregation that it had studied the case and the research and that it dealt with what had happened 30 years ago and that, according to law, it had become time-barred. That is the canonical part.

What happened next?

- From the moment we received the request to conduct this investigation – we did not receive the complaint – we immediately took measures that were proportionate to the facts. Father Marko Rupnik was prohibited from hearing confessions, leading spiritual exercises, giving spiritual direction and making any public statements, teaching and any activity of that kind that had to be authorized by his local superior.

That is what was done all this time, after we received the notification from the Congregation that these were time-barred events. The measures were maintained because we want to go further into the matter, to see how to help all those involved.

But the statement does not mention the victims. Given Father Rupnik's notoriety, was it not justified to publicize the case?

- You have to ask the victims. I cannot speak for someone who does not want to.

Why is there no reference to victims in the statement?

e there is no process that says that there is a victim here and there is a victim there. It was prescribed. There is no qualification of victims, there is a suspicion of acts that went beyond the limits of what is done between adults.

Was one of the measures taken the removal of Father Rupnik from the management of the Aletti Centre?

- That happened long before. He left the Aletti Center over a year ago [in 2020] for reasons internal to the organization of the center, because he had been in the position for a long time and already had many commitments to artistic work.

He continues to travel and do various things. For example, a retreat is planned for February at the Loreto sanctuary. Doesn't that fall under the planned measures?

- I don't think a retreat is planned, but it shouldn't [be done]. He is not detained, and none of the measures affect his artistic work. He has very important artistic commitments. He can celebrate his birthday.

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