Tag: Sexual Abuse

Woman asks Pope Francis to make Father Rupnik sex abuse case public

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One of the first women who accused a once-exalted Jesuit artist of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse went public Wednesday to demand transparency from the Vatican and a full accounting of the hierarchs who covered for him for 30 years.

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One of the first women who accused a once-exalted Jesuit artist of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse went public Wednesday to demand transparency from the Vatican and a full accounting of the hierarchs who covered for him for 30 years.

Gloria Branciani, 59, appeared at a news conference with one of the most prominent Vatican-accredited lawyers in Rome, Laura Sgro, to tell her story in public for the first time. She detailed the alleged abuses of the Rev. Marko Rupnik, including his fondness for three-way sex “in the image of the Trinity” which, if confirmed, could constitute a grave perversion of Catholic doctrine known as false mysticism.

Rupnik has not commented publicly about the allegations, but his Rome art studio has said the allegations were unproven and media reports about the case a defamatory “lynching.”

Rupnik’s mosaics decorate churches and basilicas around the world, including at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes, France, the forthcoming cathedral in Aparecida, Brazil, and the Redemptoris Mater chapel of the Apostolic Palace.

The Jesuits kicked him out of the order last year after he refused to respond to allegations of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuses by about 20 women, most of whom, like Branciani, were members of a Jesuit-inspired religious community he co-founded in his native Slovenia that has since been suppressed.

The Rupnik scandal has grabbed headlines for more than a year over speculation that he received preferential treatment from a Vatican dominated by Jesuits: From Pope Francis to the Jesuits who headed the Vatican office responsible for sex crimes and sacramental crimes that twice essentially let him off the hook.

Under pressure as the scandal grew, Francis in October decided to reopen the case and Branciani is due to soon testify before the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Sgro said that she didn’t know what the possible lines of investigation are since the Dicastery’s proceedings are secret even to victims and their lawyers.

Branciani, who first denounced Rupnik in 1993 and then left the Slovene community, called for the full story of the Rupnik scandal and cover-up to come out in public, including the documentation. She said that she believed that the pope was still in the dark about the details and that even he would be served by the truth.

“He (Rupnik) was always protected by everyone, and everything that you could accuse him of was either minimized or denied,” she said. “We hope that our testimony … will stimulate a greater transparency and a consciousness by everyone, and also maybe the pope, who wasn’t really aware of the facts that occurred.”

Francis, in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press, said he had intervened in the case only on procedural grounds and didn’t know the details.

Rupnik’s former Jesuit superior, the Rev. Johan Verschueren, said he had no contact for a lawyer for Rupnik. There was no immediate response to an email seeking comment from his Centro Aletti art studio and ecumenical center in Rome, which has strongly defended him. The Koper, Slovenia diocese, which welcomed Rupnik after he was expelled from the Jesuits, referred to an October statement saying he hadn’t been convicted by any tribunal and was presumed innocent.

The Vatican press office offered an update on the investigation after Branciani’s press conference, saying the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith had “just received the latest elements” of documentation from several institutions, including some not previously heard from.

“It will now be a matter of studying the documentation acquired in order to be able to identify what procedures will be possible and useful to implement,” the statement said.

In the news conference, Branciani described a textbook case of manipulation of conscience, sexual abuse and false mysticism, which the doctrine office has a tradition of prosecuting. After saying she underwent years of psychological manipulation, grooming and sexual advances, including while Rupnik painted the face of Jesus, she said she eventually lost her virginity to him.

At one point, she said that according to Rupnik, “Our relationship wasn’t exclusive but had to be a relation in the image of the Trinity.”

“And so as proof that our relations were truly in freedom, we had to invite another sister to live sexually with us because this sister would have had the significance of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit who united our way of relating with one another. And he even proposed the name of the sister,” she said.

The Vatican dicastery handles crimes of sexual abuse of minors as well as sacramental crimes. In the 1950s, it sanctioned a French Dominican priest, the Rev. Thomas Philippe, for false mysticism and other crimes after he perverted Catholic spirituality, religious art and sex to justify his abuse of women by claiming that Jesus and Mary were involved in incestuous sexual relationships.

The office actually took the first, and only, Vatican action against Rupnik in 2020, when it declared him excommunicated for having committed one of the most serious crimes in church law, using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual relations.

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The excommunication was lifted two weeks later and Rupnik paid an indemnisation to the woman. The following year, after nine members of the Slovene community accused him of other abuses, the dicastery chose not to prosecute him on the grounds that the alleged abuses occurred too long ago. The office routinely waives the statute of limitations for old cases involving abuse of minors.

The outcome underscored how the Catholic hierarchy routinely refuses to consider spiritual and sexual abuse of adult women as a crime that must be punished, but rather a lapse of priestly chastity that can be forgiven, without considering the trauma it causes victims.

Branciani was joined at the press conference by another former member of the Slovene Loyola Community, Mirjam Kovac, who had served as a secretary to the community’s founder and had also reported the abuses.

The event was organised by BishopAccountability, a US group that documents the abuse crisis. Its co-founder Anne Barrett-Doyle called for a full public accounting of the Rupnik cover-up along the lines of the 2020 Vatican report into the coverup of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, which documented bishops, cardinals and even popes who downplayed or dismissed his misconduct for decades.

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Sudan conflict: Two videos expose rapes allegedly carried out by Rapid Support Forces

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Since the conflict in Sudan broke out in April, hundreds of rapes have been reported by civilians and NGOs, with women from ethnic minorities being particularly targeted. In mid-June, two extremely shocking videos emerged of rapes being carried out in North Khartoum. Our Observers condemn the systemic use of sexual violence in Darfur, where ethnic tensions are rife.

WARNING: This article contains accounts of sexual violence that readers may find disturbing.

On June 21, the Observers team was sent two shocking videos that had been circulating on WhatsApp and TikTok since June 15. Both were filmed in Khartoum North, a town outside the capital. They are the first visual evidence of the use of rape during the conflict raging in Sudan since April 15 between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

One of the videos was filmed by an attacker

The first video lasts 1 minute 12 seconds and is filmed by a group of men in a room. It shows two half-naked men staring down at a naked young woman. They take turns raping her as a third films the scene while holding down the victim’s head with his foot. The young woman can be heard crying and screaming. She repeats: “It’s OK, I promise not to struggle, please don’t hurt me!” The three young men, including the man filming the video, are not wearing uniforms or any signs of belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) or the Sudanese army, the two parties to the conflict. 

The video was posted on TikTok from June 15 until it was removed on June 23.

Sudanese people expressed their outrage on Facebook and TikTok. They shared a screenshot of one of the attackers in the video and identified him by first and last name as well as home town. They also said that he was part of the Rapid Support Forces. We have not been able to independently verify this information.

Screenshot of the video filmed by the RSF, one of the rapists can be seen smiling at the camera towards the end of the clip. © Observers

The other video was filmed by a witness

The second video was filmed by a witness in Khartoum North, also known as Khartoum Bahri, at some point before June 16, when CNN published an investigation that included the video.

Opposite the building where the video was filmed, we can identify a fighter in uniform and wearing the “kamdul” – headgear typical of Sudanese Arab tribes and adopted by FSR fighters – moving back and forth over a second person in the courtyard of a house. 

The author of the video commented: “They say there are no rapes (…) This is a rape in broad daylight, we are in the Kafouri neighbourhood, in block 4, near another block. There are two other men standing guard outside.” The camera then shows a man in light beige camouflage – the characteristic colour of the FSR uniform – with a kamdul on his head standing at the gate outside the house.

On the left, a fighter wearing a uniform similar to that of the RSF is shown raping a young woman in the courtyard of a house, while on the right, a second fighter in uniform stands guard outside. Screenshots from a video sent to the Observers team.
On the left, a fighter wearing a uniform similar to that of the RSF is shown raping a young woman in the courtyard of a house, while on the right, a second fighter in uniform stands guard outside. Screenshots from a video sent to the Observers team. © Observers

“One of the victims was taken to hospital by a member of the RSF while she was suffering from vaginal bleeding”

Sulaima Ishaq Khalifa is a trauma psychologist and the director of the Unit for Ending Violence against Women, a public body attached to the Ministry of Social Affairs in Sudan. 

The unit examined the two videos and was able to identify the victims thanks to witnesses and neighbours who recognised the young girls. The two victims work as domestic servants in Khartoum Bahri. The victim in the second video was 15 years old. The age of the victim in the first video is not yet known.

Although they’re painful to watch, both videos contain tangible evidence of sexual violence perpetrated in Khartoum Bahri. The young girls are from shanty towns and they were employed as domestic help in private homes. When the RSF took control of certain districts in Khartoum, the girls shopped and cleaned for them. 

In one case, the victim was dropped off at hospital by a member of the RSF while suffering from vaginal bleeding, which confirms that the rape was committed by these forces. 

In addition to the victims’ testimonies, we rely on eyewitness accounts – in particular from families and neighbours – to document these crimes: where it happened, when and who is responsible. Rape is used as a weapon of war; it is a war crime.

Sulaima Ishaq told us that she was unable to determine the two victim’s current health condition, as those areas of North Khartoum are under the control of the RSF, making it more difficult for social services to gain access to them.

 

She highlights a nuance concerning rapes in war zones which may otherwise seem less easy to prove:

Although some victims have sex with RSF fighters in exchange for money or food, one can never speak of consent in a context of war, especially as most rape victims are minors, aged between 12 and 17, and therefore cannot give consent de facto.

According to the UN, at least 53 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence between April 15 and 19, when the conflict in Sudan began. However, according to several of our Sudanese Observers in the capital Khartoum and in Darfur, this figure is much lower than the reality on the ground. 

As of June 29, the Unit for Ending Violence against Women and Children recorded 88 cases of rape since the start of the conflict: 42 in the capital Khartoum, 21 in El Geneina, in the state of West Darfur, and 25 in Nyala, in the state of South Darfur. However, according to the unit, these recorded cases only represent 2% of rapes that take place across the country because of the taboo on speaking of the subject within the victims’ communities.


Cette Soudanaise relaie un appel à l’aide d’un témoin d’un viol collectif à Khartoum Bahri le 27 avril. Le témoin -anonyme- dit que sept combattants FSR ont fait irruption dans l’immeuble de sa tante, ont tenté d’agresser sa cousine arabe avant de violer trois filles éthiopiennes que cette dernière hébergeait.

“In one district of Nyala alone, I recorded 12 cases of rape”

Nahla Khazraji is an activist with Mostaqbal, a feminist organisation based in Nyala that documents cases of sexual violence against women and girls in West and South Darfur. She says that she has documented more than one hundred rapes since the start of the conflict, but that rape survivors have difficulty speaking out.

I have personally spoken to about a hundred victims on the phone, but officially, only 24 women have agreed to report the rapes to the Women and Children Protection Unit. In one district of Nyala alone, I recorded 12 cases of rape.

Most of them contact us anonymously just to get emergency treatment or screening, but they don’t want to make it public. So we collect testimonies and obtain treatment from the Protection Unit, then deliver it to the victims.

As well as being raped, they suffer from social pressure and the shame of being raped. It’s very difficult to get survivors to confide in us, so we prefer to talk to them privately so that we can provide them with a minimum of medical care.

“RSF break into their homes and rape them in front of their families”

Only a third of the hospitals in Sudan are still operational, with fighting in urban areas limiting the movement of civilians. The Mostaqbal association told us that unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases have gone untreated because the rapes were not reported in time. For emergency contraception to be effective, it must be administered no more than 3 to 5 days after sexual intercourse: 

We believe that around 90% of rape victims in Darfur are internally displaced persons. Many of them are daily workers, either in private homes or in cafés and restaurants. They are in extremely precarious living situations, which automatically makes them more exposed to sexual exploitation, forced prostitution and rape. In many cases, for example, women are forced to have sex with FSR fighters in exchange for money or food. 

Other victims have been raped in their homes. RSF soldiers have burst into their homes and raped them in front of their families. Imagine a woman’s psychological state after that! 

The reports we have received in Darfur indicate that most of the rapists are Janjaweed who are not in uniform. Sudanese army soldiers are also responsible for some of the sexual violence committed, but to a much lesser degree, according to the testimonies we have collected.

Rape in times of conflict constitutes a war crime

Our two Observers and several other Sudanese women are doing their utmost to record and document sexual violence during the ongoing conflict. A 2008 UN resolution defined several important measures to protect women, noting that rape and other forms of sexual violence could constitute a war crime, a crime against humanity, or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.

Rape is a war tactic that has historically been used in times of conflict. During the Rwandan genocide, up to 500,000 cases of rape were recorded, whole more than 60,000 cases were reported during the civil war in Sierra Leone. 

In Sudan, the use of rape as a weapon of war dates back to at least the 2003 conflict in Darfur, during which at least 250 non-Arab women were raped, according to Amnesty International.

 

“The victim is raped in an effort to dehumanise and defeat the enemy”

Gwenaëlle Lenoir, a freelance journalist who specialises in East Africa, covered the pro-democracy social movements in Sudan between 2019 and 2021 in Khartoum. At the time, she witnessed sexual violence perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces, but also by the Sudanese police against female demonstrators.

Members of the RSF have a history of perpetuating sexual violence. They often target Eritrean or Ethiopian refugee women because they don’t have a strong community behind them that will support or defend them. The RSF ranks are mainly made up of ethnic Arabs, so in their eyes, victims from ethnic groups other than their own can be dehumanised. This is the why rape is used as a weapon of war: the victim is raped in an effort to dehumanise and defeat the enemy. 

Rape is identified as a weapon of war because it is also systemic: although it is not an order validated by the hierarchy, soldiers or combatants have a “carte blanche” to commit acts of violence. In situations of war and chaos, women are more vulnerable, and if they happen to also be refugees, they are very vulnerable.

What happens after the war?

Rape used as a weapon of war is a matter treated by the International Criminal Court. Sudanese NGOs say that it is therefore necessary to be able to present all evidence possible in addition to testimonies. 

Feminist organisations including Sudanese Women Rights Action (SUWRA) have drawn up a list of elements that can support their cases: medical reports, police reports, bloody clothing and semen samples. At the same time, this organisation has called out the near-total lack of hospital and security services able to help and protect victims of rape. 



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Rolling Stone left *major* stuff out of their scoop on ABC producer whose home got raided by FBI

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In October 2022, Rolling Stone broke the story of ABC News national security producer James Meek’s apartment getting raided by the FBI under very mysterious circumstances.

We’ll get back to those last two tweets in a minute.

Rolling Stone editor in chief Noah Shachtman tweeted about the story as well:

Talk about a crazy story, right? Did we ever find out what actually happened?

As a matter of fact, there is an update to this story. And it’s a pretty major one:

Normally we’re not huge fans of NPR’s reporting, but we have to make an exception in this case because it’s nothing short of damning for Rolling Stone. Remember those last two tweets in the Rolling Stone thread, the ones suggesting that it wasn’t clear why the FBI would raid Meek’s house because Meek didn’t appear to have committed a crime? Yeah, well …

Once you get into NPR’s article, it should become clear pretty quickly why Rolling Stone left out the details they left out:

This is bad, guys:

It should have been a coup. Instead, acrimony inside the newsroom over how that scoop was edited led to accusations that the magazine’s brash leader pulled punches in overseeing coverage of someone he knew. The reporter who wrote the story, enraged, accepted a position at a sister publication two months later. And her complaints prompted a senior attorney for the magazine’s parent company to review what happened.

…

In the hours leading up to publication, Shachtman changed [article author Tatiana Siegel’s] draft to remove all suggestions that the investigation was not related to Meek’s reporting. He left in the finding that federal agents had allegedly found “classified information” on Meek’s devices.

The article left many readers with the distinct impression that the investigation was linked to Meek’s reporting — which could lead to a clash of the government and the press. Rolling Stone‘s official Twitter account promoted the story this way: “Exclusive: Emmy-winning ABC News producer James Gordon Meek had his home raided by the FBI. His colleagues say they haven’t seen him since.” The tweet’s thrust was echoed by WikiLeaks, Glenn Beck and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which wrote, “If this was related to his work, as this @RollingStone report suggests it might be, it is a gross press freedom violation.”

It sounds like Rolling Stone’s editor in chief deliberately buried the truth about the sex abuse allegations against Meek because the two of them were friendly. Meek looks really bad, obviously. But so does Noah Shachtman. And so does Rolling Stone. And it’s not like Rolling Stone has a whole lot of credibility to spare.

Yeah … that’s what scientists like to call “too little, too late.” And not having anything in the update about James Gordon Meek being chummy with Rolling Stone’s editor in chief makes it seem like Rolling Stone is still trying to keep the truth from readers.

***

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Poland divided after documentary alleges John Paul II hid paedophilia

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A documentary focused on Pope John Paul II’s alleged knowledge of paedophilia and sexual assault within the Catholic Church in Poland has caused widespread outcry and debate in the country after being broadcast earlier this week on the independent TVN channel.

The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has characterised this as an attack on Polish identity.

The former pope, also known by his Polish name Karol Józef Wojtyła, is perhaps the single most popular figure in country’s 20th century history, both due to being the first Polish pontiff and due to his role in inspiring the country’s transition out of communism in the 1990s.

“John Paul II is not just a religious figure or just a Pope in Poland,” explained historian and professor at Lazarski University, Christopher Lash.

“Yes, Poland is still an overwhelmingly Catholic country, but it’s more the fact that he was such an important symbol during communist times,” said Lash.

Wojtyła was elected pope in 1978 and famously became the first major religious figure to visit a communist country, since Poland was still a satellite of the Soviet Union at the time.

“Millions of people came out to see him and his message gave them hope that they could overcome the kind of authoritarian dictatorship that existed in Poland at the time,” Lash told Euronews.

“He’s seen as a national hero who led Poland out of communism and into becoming a free, democratic country.”

On Thursday, PiS, who have a majority in the Polish Sejm, adopted a resolution defending “the good name of Saint John Paul II” and condemned the “disgraceful media campaign.” They came to the parliament vote holding pictures of the late pope.

PiS have a long-standing practice of latching onto sensitive issues or those that carry a particular emotional significance for the Polish public ahead of elections, which are slated for November of this year.

“PiS will probably try to use this entire situation as a pretext for a cultural war, and ride on the strong emotions people still feel. For many in Poland, it might be too early for John Paul II and even the Catholic Church to be taken on properly,” Lash said.

After curtailing abortion and LGBT rights, PiS rallies around John Paul II

The Catholic Church in Poland is closely affiliated with the ruling party and is perceived as having backed PiS in its campaigns to curtail abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Protests broke out in August 2020 against the now-infamous “LGBT free zones” in Poland, often referred to as the ‘Polish Stonewall’ due to the similarities with the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969.

Another wave of protests emerged against the severe limitations on abortion in 2020 and 2021, and have energised an entire generation against the government’s policies on one hand, while also cementing PiS’ reputation as defenders of so-called traditional values on the other.

“These protests have, in some respects, weakened the church but also the ruling party since the two are perceived to be close. As a result of that, the church’s role in society is being criticised more and more, and definitely more than in the past,” said Lash.

“Even moderate Catholics and Catholic women also find the removal of all the abortion compromise problematic and are upset about it,” he continues. 

Defending John Paul II, whose image resonates with those beyond the usual right-left divide in the country, could be their new rallying cry since it is not just PiS supporters who believe John Paul II is an extremely important figure.

“The ruling party adheres to sort of a sovereigntist position, one where Poland stands up for itself and is sceptical of outside forces trying to weaken Poland’s interests,” concludes Lash.

Deeply polarized views Even some opposition parties, including the far-right Konfederacja party, voted in favour of the resolution. The centrist Civic Coalition (KO), led by former European Council president Donald Tusk, abstained from the vote.

The left-wing Lewica party were the only ones to vote against it. “Our perspective is that we should protect the right to seek the truth. 

The documentary seems to be fair and is not anti-clerical,” Maciej Gdula, a member of parliament from Lewica, told Euronews.

“They are basically saying that attacks on John Paul II are in line with all the external attacks that are trying to destabilize Poland. If you are attacking John Paul II you are basically on Putin’s side,” explains Gdula.

Several documentaries and films emerged over the past couple of years examining the role of the church in Polish society.

Most famous among them is the drama “Kler” or “The Clergy,” which also examines child abuse and corruption in the church. 

The TVN documentary, titled “Franciszkańska 3,” was authored by journalist Marcin Gutowski and details John Paul II’s involvement in covering up sexual crimes when he was the Archbishop of Krakow in the 1960s and 1970s before he became Pope.

Attempts to discredit the documentary and the journalist involved in its conception are also seen as a continuation of the crackdown on independent media in the country.

In 2021, Reporters without Borders declared “a press freedom state of emergency” in the country when amendments to the broadcasting law were introduced which specifically targeted TVN and threatened to suspend their license.

The channel is a subsidiary of Warner Bros Discovery, an American company. Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a condemnation of the documentary and summoned the US ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, for talks in response to the documentary.

“They want to show that they are strong enough to demand that the US ambassador talks to them, and to explain to him what TVN is doing. We [PiS] are a strong party, we’re not even afraid of the Americans,” explains Gdula.

“There is huge polarization in Poland, with the PiS camp and their allies on one side and the opposition on the other. They want to convince the public that there is a war going on between good and evil, and that those who are good should stick to PiS,” he concluded.

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