A Slovenian priest who is said to be close to the Pope has been accused of inviting two nuns to take part in a ‘Holy Trinity’ threesome.
Marko Ivan Rupnik, 68, was accused by a former nun of using his ‘psycho-spiritual’ control over her some three decades ago to have sex, including group sex, and watch pornographic films.
At the time of the allegations, Rupnik, who is known in the church for his artwork, was a spiritual director of a convent in Slovenia and the former nun, now 58, has described how her complaints against the priest were ignored.
Rupnik is now at the centre of a scandal that has engulfed the Jesuits, a Catholic order of priests and brothers, of which Pope Francis is a member.
Marko Ivan Rupnik, 68, was accused by a former nun of using his ‘psycho-spiritual’ control over her some three decades ago to have sex, including group sex, and watch pornographic films
Rupnik, right, is now at the centre of a scandal that has engulfed the Jesuits, a Catholic order of priests and brothers, of which Pope Francis, left, is a member
The former nun told the Italian investigative newspaper Domani on Sunday in an explosive testimony: ‘Father Marko started slowly and sweetly getting inside my psychological and spiritual world, exploiting my uncertainties and fragility and using my relationship with God to push me into sexual experiences with him.’
The nun claimed Rupnik had groomed her, had sex with her and bullied her into silence during her time in the Slovenian convent between 1987 and 1994.
She claimed Rupnik had asked her and another nun to have sex with him, saying they would replicate the three-way relationship between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
She said she believed Rupnik had abused as many as 20 women.
She detailed years of sexual abuse and spiritual manipulation by Rupnik and said she made repeated efforts to turn him in only to face Jesuit and other superiors who routinely protected Rupnik at her expense.
‘It was truly an abuse of conscience,’ said the nun.
She said that her first complaint about his behavior dated from 1994 in Slovenia but that it was ignored as Rupnik’s community – first in Slovenia, then in Rome – grew and gained an international following.
At the time of the allegations, Rupnik (pictured on left), who is known in the church for his artwork, was a spiritual director of a convent in Slovenia and the former nun, now 58, has described how her complaints against the priest were ignored
In the meantime, other sisters were similarly harmed, she said, describing the use of pornography, humiliation and multiple partners ‘in the image of the Trinity’ in Rupnik’s spiritual and sexual abuse.
‘He should have been stopped 30 years ago,’ the woman told Domani.
Her allegations forced Pope Francis’s Jesuit order on Sunday to ask any more victims to come forward with complaints against Rupnik.
It emerged that Rupnik has essentially been let off the hook by the Vatican twice despite devastating testimony by women who said he sexually and spiritually abused them.
The Jesuits asked for new evidence against Rupnik, and offered a timeline about his case in an effort to quell the scandal.
The Slovenian priest is relatively unknown among rank-and-file Catholics but is well known in the hierarchy because he is one of the church’s most sought-after artists. His mosaics decorate chapels, churches and basilicas around the globe.
The closed Basilica of Lourdes is pictured May 8, 2020, in Lourdes, southwestern France. Mosiacs by Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik decorate several churches and chapels, including the Lourdes basilica
The scandal exploded this past week after the Jesuits admitted he had been excommunicated for having committed one of the gravest crimes in the Catholic Church – using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.
He was declared excommunicated in May 2020, but the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith lifted the excommunication later that month after he repented, an unusually quick turnaround for such a serious violation.
A year later, the same Congregation decided not to prosecute him for another allegation of spiritual and sexual abuse of a former nun, declaring the statute of limitations had expired.
The Congregation, which routinely waives the statute of limitations, is headed by a Jesuit prefect, has a Jesuit sex crimes prosecutor and a former No. 2 who lived in Rupnik’s Jesuit community.
The Congregation has not responded to requests for information about the case, which has exposed the Vatican’s general refusal to consider spiritual and sexual abuse of adult women as a crime that must be punished.
Rather, the Vatican has long considered such abuse a mere lapse of priestly chastity that can be forgiven, without considering the trauma it causes victims.
The scandal has been accentuated by conflicting accounts given by the Jesuits.
After the first allegations of the 2021 complaint were aired in Italian blogs and websites this month, the Jesuits issued a statement referring only to the 2021 case. But under questioning by AP at a Christmas reception, the Jesuit superior, the Rev. Arturo Sosa, admitted Rupnik had previously been excommunicated for the confession-related crime.
Sosa said that Rupnik’s ministry had been restricted and that he was forbidden from hearing confessions, giving spiritual direction or leading spiritual exercises. However, Rupnik is listed as scheduled to deliver spiritual exercises from February 13-17 at the Loreto Marian shrine on Italy’s Adriatic coast, according to the Loreto website.
On Sunday, Rupnik’s immediate superior, the Rev. Johan Verschueren, said he wanted to try to clarify some of the questions that have erupted about the case. In a statement, he appealed for anyone with old or new allegations to come forward.
‘My main concern in all of this is for those who have suffered, and I invite anyone who wishes to make a new complaint or who wants to discuss complaints already made to contact me,’ he said.
He said complaints would be accepted in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and German.