Former Nun Makes Explosive Allegations Against Father Rupnik | National Catholic Registry

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The woman told an Italian newspaper that her reports of father Marko Rupnik’s serial abuse allegations were ignored by superiors and that father Marko was protected by everyone.

VATICAN CITY Former nun who says she was abused by Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik has given explosive interview detailing extent of depravity she allegedly suffered and claims priest abused half of the community of nuns to which she once belonged.

Speaking to Italian newspaper Domani on December 18, the woman known as Anna alleged how in the 1980s Father Rupnik began to manipulate her, taking advantage of her youth and naivety and making the young woman dependent from him.

I wanted to run away, Anna said in the interview. I was afraid of making mistakes, afraid of losing his approval, I felt extremely dependent on his judgment.

The former nun said the abuse was pure abuse of conscience and that her sexual obsession was not improvised but deeply linked to her conception of art and her theological thinking.

A member of the Loyola community near the Slovenian capital Ljubljana from 1987 to 1994, Anna claimed that Father Rupnik first slowly and gently infiltrated my psychological and spiritual world by appealing to my insecurities and frailties while using my relationship with God to push me to have sexual experiences with him.

And so, feeling loved like Wisdom playing before God, as it is written in the book of Proverbs, turned into a demand for more and more erotic games in his studio at the Collegio del Ges in Rome, painting or after the celebration of the Eucharist or Confession, says Anna.

Father Rupnik co-founded the Loyola community with Sister Ivanka Hosta in the early 1980s and served as the community chaplain until the early 1990s. A Church investigation concluded in January of this year, stating that there was a case to answer regarding Fr. Rupnik’s allegations of serial abuse within the community, but the Vatican declined to conduct canonical proceedings due to the statute of limitations.

In 2020, the Vatican condemned Father Rupnik for having absolved in the confessional in 2015 an accomplice with whom he had sinned against the sixth commandment, a serious sin which leads to lataessentiae (automatic) excommunication. After a 2019-2020 investigation, in early 2020 he was officially excommunicated but the excommunication was lifted in May 2020 after Father Rupnik repented of the crime.

These facts were only made public after Italian media began reporting in early December on the other allegations against Father Rupnik.

Anna was one of the first sisters to join the community. From the start, she said that Father Rupnik demanded absolute availability and obedience from me and that the sexual abuse continued into the 1990s after she took her vows.

The dynamic was always the same: if I had any doubts or refused, Rupnik would discredit me in front of the Fellowship by saying that I was not growing spiritually, Anna told Domani. He had no restraint, he used all means to achieve his goal, even the confidences heard in confession. There began my psychological collapse.

She said the alleged abuse continued to escalate, taking on an even more serious nature after Father Rupnik founded the Aletti Center in Rome, a community aimed at promoting Ignatian art and spirituality.

The final step in this descent into hell was the shift from theological justifications for sex to an exclusively pornographic relationship, she claimed. Around this time, in the early 1990s, she says, the Slovenian priest began to use the same psycho-spiritual strategies with other members of the community.

In the early 1990s there were 41 sisters, and as far as I know Father Rupnik managed to abuse almost twenty of them, Anna claims, adding that at one point she ran away from the community to die in the woods.

She said she tried to share her experience of abuse with her superiors, but no one helped me, and added that Father Marko was protected by everyone. No one, she said, dared speak openly about the abuse because we lived in an atmosphere of omerta.

Asked about the crime for which Father Rupnik was excommunicated, Anna said it pained her deeply as it confirmed her fears that he would become an abuser of women. He should have been stopped 30 years ago, she says.

Anna said she testified at the ecclesiastical inquiries into Father Rupnik in 2021, but since she heard nothing more, she wrote an open letter in June 2022 addressed to Jesuit Superior General Father Arturo Sosa and l copied to Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Vicar of Rome Angelo De Donatis, Father Rupniks local superior, Father Johan Verschueren, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and other members of the Society of Jesus and the Aletti Center.

I didn’t get a response from any of them, she said.

On December 18, the Society of Jesus invited anyone abused by Father Rupnik to contact it.

When asked if she was seeking compensation for moral and material damage, Anna replied: I am considering this possibility with my lawyer.

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