2023-10-27 15:33:11
Pope Francis has decided to lift the statute of limitations on an influential Slovenian priest and artist accused of having committed sexual and psychological violence against women in the early 1990s, the Vatican announced on Friday.
Pope Francis “asked the dicastery (Vatican Ministry, editor’s note) for the doctrine of the faith to examine this matter and decided to waive the prescription to allow the disciplinary procedure to proceed” against Marko Rupnik, theologian and mosaicist world famous aged 68 whose mosaics are notably visible in Lourdes, Fatima and Washington.
“The Pope is firmly convinced (…) that the Church (…) must listen with attention and compassion to those who suffer, especially if they feel marginalized by the Church,” justified the Vatican in its press release. .
AFP
Marko Rupnik is notably accused by nine nuns of sexual and psychological violence in a community in Ljubljana in Slovenia in the early 1990s.
In mid-December 2022, the Jesuit Order, the one from which Pope Francis came and to which Marko Rupnik belonged before being excluded in June 2023, announced the opening of an investigation against him.
The Vatican, which had also received a complaint concerning Father Rupnik, had invoked the statute of limitations to close the case in October 2022 without a canonical investigation, Father Rupnik only receiving restrictions imposed by the Society of Jesus on his ministry, in particular the prohibition of giving confession and accompanying spiritual activities.
AFP
It is precisely the decision of Pope Francis to derogate from the limitation periods of canon law which allows the opening of the procedure against the religious.
Accused in another case of having had a sexual relationship with a woman then of having given her absolution, he was briefly excommunicated – excluded from the Christian community – in 2020 by the Vatican, the highest possible sanction, however immediately lifted, because he had admitted the facts and had formally repented.
In Slovenia, the diocese of Koper, an Adriatic port city, announced Thursday that Father Rupnik had been admitted there in August at his request.
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