Tag: Vatican

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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Cardinal is convicted of embezzlement in Vatican financial trial

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A Vatican tribunal on Saturday convicted a cardinal of embezzlement and sentenced him to 5 ½ years in prison in one of several verdicts handed down in a complicated financial trial that aired the city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the first cardinal ever prosecuted by the Vatican criminal court, was absolved of several other charges and his nine co-defendants received a mixed outcome of some guilty verdicts and many acquittals of the nearly 50 charges brought against them during a 2 ½ year trial.

Becciu’s lawyer, Fabio Viglione, said he respected the sentence but would appeal.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi said the outcome “showed we were correct.”

The trial focused on the Vatican secretariat of state’s 350 million euro investment in developing a former Harrod’s warehouse into luxury apartments. Prosecutors alleged Vatican monsignors and brokers fleeced the Holy See of tens of millions of euros in fees and commissions and then extorted the Holy See for 15 million euros to cede control of the building.

Becciu was accused of embezzlement-related charges in two tangents of the London deal and faced up to seven years in prison.

In the end, he was convicted of embezzlement stemming from the original Vatican investment of 200 million euros into a fund that invested in the London property. The tribunal determined canon law prohibited using church assets in such a speculative investment.

He was also convicted of embezzlement for his 125,000 euro donation of Vatican money to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia and of using Vatican money to pay an intelligence analyst who in turn was convicted of using the money for herself.

The trial had raised questions about the rule of law in the city state and Francis’ power as absolute monarch, given that he wields supreme legislative, executive and judicial authority and had exercised it in ways the defense says jeopardized a fair trial.

The defense attorneys did praise Judge Giuseppe Pignatone’s even-handedness and said they were able to present their arguments amply. But they lamented the Vatican’s outdated procedural norms gave prosecutors enormous leeway to withhold evidence and otherwise pursue their investigation nearly unimpeded.

Andrea Tornielli, the Vatican’s editorial director, said the verdicts showed the defense had ample space to present their case and that the defense rights were respected. 

“The outcome of this trial tells us that the judges of the tribunal, as is right, acted with full independence based on documentary proofs and witnesses, not pre-confectioned theories,” he wrote in an editorial in Vatican News.

Prosecutors had sought prison terms from three to 13 years and damages of over 400 million euros to try to recover the estimated 200 million euros they say the Holy See lost in the bad deals. 

In the end, the tribunal acquitted many of the suspects of many of the biggest charges, including fraud, corruption and money-laundering, determining in many cases that the crimes simply didn’t exist. 

But it nevertheless ordered the confiscation of 166 million euros from them and payment of civil damages to Vatican offices of 200 million euros. One defendant, Becciu’s former secretary Monsignor Mauro Carlino, was acquitted entirely.

The trial was initially seen as a sign of Francis’ financial reforms and willingness to crack down on alleged financial misdeeds in the Vatican. But it had something of a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, with revelations of vendettas, espionage and even ransom payments to Islamic militants.

Much of the London case rested on the passage of the property from one London broker, Raffaele Mincione, to another in late 2018. Prosecutors allege the second broker, Gianluigi Torzi, hoodwinked the Vatican by maneuvering to secure full control of the building that he relinquished only when the Vatican paid him off 15 million euros.

For Vatican prosecutors, that amounted to extortion. For the defense — and a British judge who rejected Vatican requests to seize Torzi’s assets — it was a negotiated exit from a legally binding contract. 

In the end, the tribunal convicted Torzi of several charges, including extortion, and sentenced him to six years in prison. Mincione was convicted of embezzlement for the original London investment but was absolved of, among other things, of inflating the cost of the building when the Vatican bought into it.

It wasn’t clear where the suspects would serve their time, if the convictions are upheld on appeal. The Vatican has a jail, but Torzi’s whereabouts weren’t immediately known and it wasn’t clear how or whether other countries would extradite the defendants to serve any sentence.

The former heads of the Vatican financial intelligence agency, Tommaso di Ruzza and Rene Bruelhart, were absolved of the main charge of abuse of office. They were convicted only of failing to report a suspicious transaction involving Torzi to prosecutors and fined 1,750 euros apiece.

They had argued they couldn’t tip off Vatican prosecutors to the transaction because they had initiated their own cross-border financial intelligence-gathering operation into Torzi after Francis asked them to help the secretariat of state get possession of the property.

A Vatican official, Fabrizio Tirabassi, was convicted of extortion along with Torzi and a money-laundering charge. The Vatican’s long-time financial adviser, Enrico Crasso was convicted of several charges including embezzlement and sentenced to seven years in prison.

The original London investigation spawned two other tangents that involved the star defendant, Becciu, once one of Francis’ top advisers and himself considered a papal contender.

Prosecutors accused Becciu of embezzlement for sending 125,000 euros in Vatican money to a Sardinian charity run by his brother. Becciu argued that the local bishop requested the money to build a bakery to employ at-risk youths and that the money remained in the diocesan coffers.

The tribunal acknowledged the charitable ends of the donation but convicted him of embezzlement, given his brother’s role.

Becciu was also accused of paying a Sardinian woman, Cecilia Marogna, for her intelligence services. Prosecutors traced some 575,000 euros in wire transfers from the Vatican to a Slovenian front company owned by Marogna and said she used the money to buy luxury goods and fund vacations.

Becciu said he thought the money was going to pay a British security firm to negotiate the release of Gloria Narvaez, a Colombian nun taken hostage by Islamic militants in Mali in 2017.

He said Francis authorized up to 1 million euros to liberate the nun, an astonishing claim that the Vatican was willing to make ransom payment to al-Qaida-linked militants.

(AP) 

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Pope Francis fires conservative critic as Texas bishop

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Strickland, 65, has emerged as a leading critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of “undermining the deposit of faith.”

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Pope Francis on Saturday ordered the removal of the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative prelate active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and has come to symbolize the polarization within the US Catholic hierarchy.

A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had “relieved” Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator.

Strickland, 65, has emerged as a leading critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of “undermining the deposit of faith.” He has been particularly critical of Francis’ recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church during which hot-button issues were discussed, including ways to better welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics.

Earlier this year, the Vatican sent in investigators to look into his governance of the diocese, amid reports that priests and laypeople in Tyler had complained and that he was making unorthodox claims.

The Vatican never released the findings and Strickland had insisted he wouldn’t resign voluntarily, saying in media interviews that he was given a mandate to serve as bishop in 2012 by the late Pope Benedict XVI and couldn’t abdicate that responsibility.

The conservative website LifeSiteNews, which said it interviewed Strickland on Saturday, quoted him as saying one of the reasons given for his ouster was his refusal to implement Francis’ 2021 restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass.

Crackdown on old liturgy

Francis’ crackdown on the old liturgy has become a rallying cry for traditionalist Catholics opposed to the pontiff’s progressive bent. Strickland told LifeSite he refused to implement the restrictions “because I can’t starve out part of my flock.”

He said he stood by his decision, would do it again and “I feel very much at peace in the Lord and the truth that he died for.”

His firing sparked an immediate outcry among some conservatives and traditionalists who had held up Strickland as a leading point of Catholic reference to counter Francis’ progressive reforms. Michael J. Matt, editor of the traditionalist newspaper The Remnant, wrote that with the firing, Francis was “actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ.”

“This is total war,” Matt wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Francis is a clear and present danger not only to Catholics the world over but also to the whole world itself.”

The two Vatican investigators sent to investigate Strickland — Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, N.J., and the retired bishop of Tucson, Ariz., Bishop Emeritus Gerald Kicanas — “conducted an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of the governance and leadership of the diocese,” said the head of the church in Texas, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.

After their investigation, a recommendation was made to Francis that “the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible,” DiNardo said in a statement Saturday.

The Vatican asked Strickland to resign Thursday, but he declined, prompting Francis to remove him from office two days later, DiNardo’s statement said.

Concerns about US right

It is rare for the pope to remove a bishop from office. Bishops are required to offer to resign when they reach 75. When the Vatican uncovers issues with governance or other problems that require a bishop to leave office before then, the Vatican usually seeks to pressure him to offer to resign for the good of his diocese and the church.

That was the case when another US bishop was forced out earlier this year following a Vatican investigation. Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Tenn., resigned voluntarily, albeit under pressure, following allegations he mishandled sex abuse allegations and his priests complained about his leadership and behaviour.

But with Strickland, the Vatican statement made clear that he had not offered to resign and that Francis had instead “relieved” him from his job.

Francis has not been shy about his concerns about the right wing in the US Catholic hierarchy, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage.

In comments to Portuguese Jesuits in August, Francis blasted the “backwardness” of these conservative bishops, saying they had replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.

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Strickland had been associated with the most extreme of these bishops, including the former Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce Francis critic who in 2018 called for the pope to resign.

Strickland backed Vigano’s conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, and on Saturday Vigano wrote that Strickland’s ouster showed a “cowardly form of authoritarianism” by Francis. “This affair will reveal who stands with the true Church of Christ and who chooses to stand with His declared enemies,” Vigano wrote on X.

Political divide

Most recently, Strickland had criticized Francis’ monthlong closed-door debate on making the church more welcoming and responsive to the needs of Catholics today. The meeting debated a host of previously taboo issues, including women in governance roles and welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics, but in the end, its final document didn’t veer from established doctrine.

Ahead of the meeting, Strickland said it was a “travesty” that such things were even on the table for discussion.

”Regrettably, it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed,” Strickland wrote in a public letter in August. “Instead, those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christ’s Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics.”

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In a statement Saturday, the diocese of Tyler announced Strickland’s removal but said the church’s work would continue in Tyler.

“Our mission is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to foster an authentic Christian community, and to serve the needs of all people with compassion and love,” it said.

In a social media post sent a few hours before the Vatican’s noon announcement, Strickland wrote a prayer about Christ being the “way, the truth and the life, yesterday, today and forever.” He had changed the handle from his previous @bishopoftyler to @BishStrickland.

The incoming temporary administrator for Tyler, Austin Bishop Joe Vásquez, said he would be travelling to the diocese over the coming weeks to be on hand for the priests, staff and lay faithful “to assess their needs.”

He asked for prayers for his work and the people of Tyler “during this time of transition.”

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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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