ROME — The disgraced former Jesuit priest Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, who is accused of “highly credible” accusations of serial abuse, continues to live a normal life in Rome at the art center he founded, despite being incardinated into his native diocese in Slovenia since June. 

A staff member of his Aletti art center confirmed to the Register Dec. 20 that the mosaic artist currently resides at the center, but is away from Rome for Christmas. 

An official of the Diocese of Koper where he is now incardinated confirmed to the Register Dec. 22 that the Slovenian priest is not living in the diocese. 

Father Rupnik was dismissed from the Jesuits on June 9 for his “stubborn refusal" to obey his superiors’ directions. 

Those directions included restrictions on his ministry recommended by investigators looking into what the Society of Jesus determined were “highly credible” accusations of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse, and abuse of conscience. 

Father Rupnik was also excommunicated in 2019 for absolving in the confessional an accomplice of a sin against the sixth commandment, but the excommunication was swiftly removed.

According to a statement sent to CNA on Oct. 25, the ex-Jesuit priest was received into the Diocese of Koper at the end of August, giving the general impression that Father Rupnik had actually moved there. 

The statement added that the local bishop had accepted Father Rupnik’s request to be received into the diocese “on the basis of the decree on Father Rupnik’s dismissal from the Jesuit order” and “and on the basis of the fact that no judicial sentence had been passed on Father Rupnik.” 

 

Dismissal from the Jesuits

On June 15, the Society of Jesus issued a statement saying that because its superiors “considered the degree of credibility of what was reported or testified to be very high,” they “forced” the priest to “change communities and accept a new mission.”

In that mission, they added, the Society “offered him one last chance as a Jesuit to come to terms with his past and to give a clear signal to the many aggrieved people who were testifying against him to enter a path of truth.”

“Faced with Marko Rupnik’s repeated refusal to obey this mandate, we were unfortunately left with only one solution: resignation from the Society of Jesus,” the statement continued. 

Father Rupnik, the order said, had been granted 30 days to appeal, stating that “if and only when Father Marko Rupnik’s resignation from the Society becomes final, will it be possible to explore the issues further. Not before.”

The resignation took effect on June 9, according to the statement. Just four days later, on June 13, Father Rupnik had already requested to be incardinated in Koper, a request that was granted on June 20 after discussions with Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the Vicar of Rome, according to an Oct. 25 report in the Italian Catholic site Silere non possum. The decision was also reportedly approved by Archbishop Jean-Marie Speich, the apostolic nuncio to Slovenia. 

In a Nov. 2 statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Father Rupnik’s former Jesuit superior, Father Johan Verschueren, said that in March the Jesuits had “exhaustively” informed Bishop Jurij Bizjak of Koper about the cases and complaints of abuse against Father Rupnik. 

HIs request for incardination was nevertheless granted on an experimental basis, according to Silere non possum, adding that this suggests “he can now exercise his priestly ministry freely.” 

In its Oct. 25 report, Silere non possum quoted an unnamed source inside the Jesuit Curia saying that “Rupnik has not asked to exercise his ministry” in Slovenia, “but wanted to continue to hold spiritual exercises and make mosaics.”