(ITALY)
La Croix International [France]
October 26, 2023
By Katie Prejean McGrady
Are the commitments for a synodal Church credible when a priest accused of repeated sex abuse finds a new diocese?
Most mornings, on the drive to school, my daughters wave at the Catholic Church we drive by and say, “Hi, Jesus!” It’s a small gesture of their deep faith, and one that gives me great hope. Even at just six and three, they know the Lord is there, Jesus present in the Eucharist, inside the tabernacle, set behind the altar, in the Church we drive past.
But some mornings, like the morning of October 25, that great hope in their young faith and my love of the Church was short lived. Because sometimes, the Church lets me down, and even the burgeoning faith of my two little girls can’t seem to buoy it back up.
I hoped my Wednesday would be spent reading the Letter from the Synod of Bishops to the People of God, excited to see what a month worth of meetings had put forth as a path forward for our Church. And read it I did, excited to find references to the witness of families, the need for lay men and women to engage in leadership within the Church, and encouragement for listening to even those who have felt discarded and left out.
But then, a line stood out to me. One I was happy to see:
“Above all, the Church of our time has the duty to listen, in a spirit of conversion, to those who have been victims of abuse committed by members of the ecclesial body, and to commit herself concretely and structurally to ensuring that this does not happen again.”
Powerful words, I thought. The Church has a duty to listen to the victims of abuse, the Church must be committed to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Praise God! I thought. Solid words that declare a steadfast commitment to fighting against, eradicating, and correcting for past abuses.
Sad, then, that this letter highlighting the work of the Synod was released the same day news broke of Father Marko Rupnik, a credibly accused serial abuser, perhaps even being protected by Pope Francis, has been incardinated in the Diocese of Koper, in Slovenia.
Justified fury
Those words from the Synodal letter ring hollow, now, because there seems to be no commitment to ensure this (abuse) doesn’t happen again when the 68-year-old former Jesuit is given a new diocese in which to live, work, and serve as a priest after credible accusations of spiritual and sexual abuse against women religious for decades.
How is this a steadfast commitment to fighting against anything other than the dignity of victims of abuse? How is his new placement anything other than an eradication of our trust in the Church’s commitment to rectifying and preventing abuse? How is Father Rupnik in the Diocese of Koper anything other than a correction of our assumptions that the Church is deeply committed to correcting the wrongs of the past and protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse?
I love my faith and I love our Church, and I so wanted the final days of the Synod on synodality to be a celebration of the good work so many have done this month to bring conversation, dialogue, and listening to the fore of our Church. I have great hope in and for the Church when I look at the faith of my two little girls who happily wave at the parish Church when we drive past. But I have a hard time expressing that love or being rooted in that hope when on the same day we’re told the Church’s synodal work is deeply committed to ending and eradicating abuse that a credibly accused abuser is incardinated in a new diocese and gets to continue being a priest.
How is this a synodal listening to those hurt by abuse? How is this a synodal Church that holds space for those victims harmed in physical and spiritual ways by abuse? If anything, this feels like no one is being cared for in the margins, but instead, those victims of abuse are being shoved into them.
When our attention could have been focused on the good work of the Synod, and the forthcoming document and the continued dialogue over the next year, instead, all of the Catholic media world and social media was (rightly) swept up in anger at Rupnik’s new assignment. What could have been a day where we celebrated and believed solid statements about the good work of the Synod, and the Church that we are, was instead a day consumed with justified fury about an accused abuser’s seeming “get out of jail free pass.”
Dashed hopes
The normal Sunday Mass going Catholic who isn’t constantly scrolling social media may not know who Father Marko Rupnik is, what he’s been accused of doing, or why it’s such a scandal that he gets a new assignment without any seeming repercussions.
Perhaps it’s just the terminally online, plugged into the Catholic news folks who know this story and are angered by it. But, whether this is headline news in mainstream media or the parish bulletin, or not, it is a sad day indeed when the good work of the Church is entirely ignored (and rightly so) because of the terrible decision to shuffle abusers around and think no one will notice.
We may not know the whole story with Father Marko Rupnik, though good reporting has revealed a lot concerning the allegations, alleged cover-ups, removal from the Jesuits, and attempted rehabilitation of his
reputation. We may not know the full scope of what’s to come as (hopefully) more is investigated to learn of the full extent of what he’s done and how we help people heal from his misdeeds and actions.
But I do know that Father Rupnik in the headlines and his new assignment dashed a lot of my hope in the Church today, as it did a lot of peoples’ hopes, and it’ll be a long walk back from the margins into which those who care about the Church eradicating abuse have been shoved.