CV NEWS FEED // Disgraced former Jesuit priest, artist and sex abuser Marko Rupnik was made a priest in a Slovenian diocese this week. 

According to a report on October 25 by Silere Non Possum, an Italian Catholic blog, Rupnik was accepted as a priest in the Slovenian Diocese of Koper by its bishop, Juri Bizjak, and can now freely exercise his priestly ministry. 

“Marko Ivan Rupnik, a former Slovenian Jesuit who was expelled from the Jesuit order due to accusations of spiritual and sexual abuse, has been incorporated as a priest into the Diocese of Kope,” Slovenian Catholic Magazine Druzinia reported.

Rupnik, whose art still appeared on a Vatican website this month, has been accused of sexually abusing several nuns from the Loyola community, a congregation he helped found in his native Slovenia.  

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said the priest had incurred automatic excommunication for absolving several victims of his sexual abuse in sacramental confession.

Pope Francis revoked the excommunication, however. Shortly thereafter, further complaints regarding abuses committed by Rupnik reached the press, the Jesuits, the Vicariate of Rome and the Dicastery.

The Society of Jesus initially took precautionary measures by barring Rupnik from hearing confessions, giving spiritual direction, or conducting spiritual exercises. He was also not allowed to appear in public without the permission of the local superior. 

After Rupnik violated all these measures, the Society of Jesus issued a decree on June 9 expelling him from the Jesuits “due to stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.”

However, neither the Jesuits nor the Vicariate of the City of Rome, where he was exercising his artistic and spiritual ministry, moved to expel him from the clerical state.

According to Druzinia, a month before his official expulsion from the order, Rupnik wrote to Bishop Bizjak and asked him to accept him “ad experimentum” (temporarily, as an experiment) in his home diocese. 

Bishop Bizjak consulted with bishop Jean-Marie Speich, the apostolic nuncio in Slovenia, as well as Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the vicar of the Diocese of Rome, and Giacomo Incitti, professor of canon law at the Pontifical University of Urbaniana and a judge at the Court of Appeal of the Diocese of Rome. 

A few days after receiving Rupnik’s letter, on June 20, 2023, the bishop of Koper accepted Rupnik’s request. 

Rupnik can now freely exercise his ministry. 

Rupnik’s reinstatement as a priest in a Slovenian diocese has sparked a new wave of indignation, causing some to question the Vatican’s commitment to what Pope Francis has described as “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse.

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