Vatican finds priest who created Ta’ Pinu mosaics sexually abused nuns

A Vatican investigation has concluded that prominent Slovenian Jesuit Marko Rupnik, known around the world for his mosaics, including those that adorn the Ta’ Pinu sanctuary in Gozo, psychologically and sexually abused a number of nuns at the Loyola Community of Ljubljana, where he worked in the 1990s.

Although the charges are time-barred, following the investigation the 68-year-old Rupnik has had his ministry restricted, including a ban on hearing confessions and conducting spiritual direction, the Society of Jesus (the same religious order as Pope Francis) said this week in reporting the preliminary investigation concluded by the Vatican in October.

The accusations came from at least nine women and date back to the early 1990s. They involve psychological and sexual abuse against nuns from the Loyola Community of Ljubljana, where he was the community’s confessor and spiritual director for a number of years.

The Society of Jesus statement was published after the case emerged on the internet earlier this week on an Italian website run by legal and religious scholars – ‘Silere non possum’, Latin for ‘I cannot keep quiet’.

The Society said the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) had “received a complaint in 2021 against Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik SJ concerning his way of exercising his ministry. No minors were involved”.

The DDF said it “asked the Society of Jesus to set up a preliminary investigation into this case,” which was done immediately.

“After studying the investigation,” the note said, the Vatican dicastery “found that the facts in question were to be considered time-barred and therefore closed the case at the beginning of October”.

During the preliminary investigation, a number of precautionary measures were taken against Rupnik. The Jesuits’ statement explains: “Prohibition of the exercise of the sacrament of confession, of spiritual direction and the accompaniment of spiritual exercises”.

Rupnik has also been prohibited from carrying out public activities without the permission of his local Superior.

The note specifies that “these measures are still in force today, as administrative measures, even after the response of the dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“The Society of Jesus takes into serious consideration any denunciation against one of its members”.

In 2013, Rupnik led a Marian symposium at Ta’ Pinu, and he spent considerable time there in 2015 when he installed several of his mosaics on the façade – one above the main door, one on the left and the right of the door – and the parvis.

Rupnik’s mosaics can be found at the Vatican’s Mater Chapel, the façade of the Rosary in Lourdes, the crypt of Padre Pio San Giovanni Rotondo, Fatima’s new church, the Sanctuary of St John Paul II in Poland, and several other churches in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Serbia, Syria, Romania, Damascus and Lebanon.