(ITALY)
ANSA - Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata [Rome, Italy]
April 3, 2024
2 cases against ex Jesuit already known, 3 new at Doctrine of Faith
There are currently five complaints from alleged sex-abuse victims of world-famous Slovenian mosaic artist and ex-Jesuit priest Marko Rupnik at the Vatican office that handles such cases, Vatican sources said Wednesday.
Two of the complaints to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith are already known and three of them new, they said.
The two came out in public for the first time in late February, saying that “the rubber wall” surrounding Rupnik’s alleged sex abuse has “crumbled.” They are named Mirjiam and Gloria, and are Slovenian women former members of the Ignatius of Loyola Community of which the 69-year-old Rupnik was a prominent member before being expelled three years ago.
“We knew each other in the community,” Mirjam explained in a press conference with Gloria at her side, “we were all young girls, full of ideals, but these very ideals together with our training in obedience were exploited for abuses of various kinds: of conscience, of power, spiritual, psychic, physical and often even sexual.
“We were faced with a rubber wall,” they said, “let the wall crumble.
Pope Francis took the surprise decision to reopen Rupnik’s case personally last October, ordering a surprise derogation to the statute of limitations on his alleged crimes.