VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
La Croix International [France]
February 22, 2024
By Loup Besmond de Senneville
Two former women religious who say they were sexually and psychologically abused by Jesuit mosaic artist Mark Rupnik speak publicly for first time at a press conference in Rome
Speaking to a hundred journalists from around the world at a press conference in Rome, Gloria Branciani’s voice broke more than once. The 59-year-old Italian, who used to be a sister in a religious community in Slovenia founded by former Jesuit Marko Rupnik, described at length the ordeal she endured for years at the hands of the famous priest-icon artist and spiritual director.
Her testimony on February 21 came five years to the day after Pope Francis opened a historic summit at the Vatican to deal with sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Branciani recounted the harrowing story of the control — which she described as “slavery” — that she suffered at the hands of Rupnik, a Slovenian Jesuit whose mosaics adorn dozens of churches worldwide, from Lourdes to Aparecida (Brazil), and even the papal chapel inside the Apostolic Palace.
For nearly an hour, she described the mechanisms that led from her first meeting with Rupnik, then a rising star in the Catholic Church, to accusations of repeated rapes, several years later. She detailed the inappropriate gestures that gradually turned into touching, the “hugs” at the end of confession that became opportunities to kiss her, and then the sexual violence.
She precisely traced the day she “lost her virginity” in a car, during a trip in Slovenia. She told of the sexual orgies, and being forced to watch pornographic films, in two Roman cinemas “where Rupnik had his habits”. Repeatedly, she said she wanted to detach herself. Always in vain. “Once, he told me that if I spoke up, it was my word against his, that he would deny everything and make me out to be crazy,” Branciani recalled.
“He told me he kissed me as he kisses the altar on which he celebrates the Eucharist”
She said Rupnik always justified his action through a mystical discourse. “He told me he kissed me as he kisses the altar on which he celebrates the Eucharist,” she said. And she recounted how he invoked the Holy Trinity when having sex with her and another sister in the community. “He told me he felt in prayer that our relationship was not exclusive but in the image of the Trinity,” said Branciani, who was one of the first to join the Rupnik’s community in Slovenia.
She finally left the community in 1994 in a state of devastation, thinking that “death was the only way out”.
Branciani had already revealed much of this to the Italian press back in December 2022 under a pseudonym. But February 21 was the first time she came forward to reveal her real name and identity. She joined Mirjam Kovac, another former religious sister who was abused by Rupnik, and their lawyer Laura Sgro. The press conference was organized by Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of clerical abuse survivor advocacy group and website Bishop Accountability. All four women demanded “truth and justice”.
At least 24 plaintiffs
“We want the truth to be revealed, including about the documents,” said Kovac, referring to the denunciation and other materials in the Rupnik case that Church authorities possess. “In 1993, when I denounced (him), I filed the complaint within my community, to my superior, who swept everything under the rug.”
The icon-artist and spiritual guru has been accused by at least 24 individuals, mainly women, who claim they suffered “abuse of conscience, and being spiritually, psychologically, or sexually harassed during personal experiences of relationship with Father Rupnik”. The incidents are said to have taken place between the 1980s and 2018.
The Vatican opened a canonical trial against Rupnik in 2019, after which he was briefly excommunicated in 2020 after it was determined that the granted “absolution” in the confessional to a novice sisterhe had previously sexually assaulted. But the excommunication was quickly lifted. Nonetheless, the Society of Jesus expelled Rupnick from the order in June of last year.
Numerous people have accused Jesuit leaders of being too slow in acknowledging the facts before finally opening an internal investigation. The role played by Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, has also been questioned, particularly regarding the lifting of the excommunication in 2020.
The pope said in an interview with AP in January 2023 that he never intervened in Rupnik’s case. The following October, however, Francis lifted the statute of limitations and ordered the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to re-open his former Jesuit confrere’s case and conduct another trial if necessary.
An ongoing investigation
But Branciani said on February 21 that she and Rupnik’s other accusers “know nothing” about an ongoing procedure.
“We don’t know what charge they are investigating,” added Sgro, the lawyer, who requested that there be “transparency” regarding the Vatican trial. “The victims deserve it, the Jesuits too. As well as the people who go to church and find themselves before a Rupnik mosaic,” she said.
After the February 21 press conference, the Holy See Press Office clarified that the DDF has “contacted the institutions involved in various ways in the case in order to receive all available information on the case.” It said it would “now be a matter of studying the acquired documentation in order to be able to identify the procedures that will be possible and useful to implement”.