By Hannah Brockhaus
Rome Newsroom, August 16, 2024 / 1:32 p.m.
Despite calls from abuse victims and their advocates to stop exhibiting artwork by disgraced former Jesuit priest Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Vatican has once again used one of the artist’s images to illustrate an online article.
In addition, last week a video was released by the Argentine public television channel Canal de la Cuidad showing a picture of Rupnik hanging in Pope Francis’ private chambers in the Vatican residence of Santa Marta.
On the Vatican website, the Holy See’s Communications Department used an image of a Rupnik mosaic depicting the Dormition of the Virgin Mary at the beginning of an article on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15.
Rupnik’s art continued to be featured regularly in Vatican News articles on Catholic holidays after public allegations of abuse were made against the Slovenian priest in late 2022.
Rupnik is facing charges of sexual abuse of women. The Vatican’s Office for the Doctrine of the Faith is currently investigating him after Pope Francis waived the statute of limitations.
In June, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, chairman of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and newly retired Archbishop of Boston, sent a letter to heads of Vatican offices urging them to exercise “pastoral prudence” and not to exhibit works of art that might imply an exoneration or defense of those accused of abuse.
“We must avoid the impression that the Holy See is unaware of the psychological distress of so many people,” O’Malley wrote in a letter dated June 26, according to the commission he heads.
Video from Pope Francis’s apartment shows an image of Saint Joseph sleeping with an angel above him hanging on the wall next to a door when Pope Francis met on August 8 with Anita Fernández, the granddaughter of one of the victims murdered in the so-called “death flights” of the last military dictatorship in Argentina.
The image appears to be a detail from a larger mosaic installation by Rupnik from 2008 in a chapel of a religious house in Croatia. Images and a description of the work can be found on the website of Centro Aletti, Rupnik’s art school and theology center in Rome.
It is probably at least the second work of art by Rupnik that hangs in the Pope’s private chambers. The other is a mosaic of Mary with the baby Jesus, which the Pope spoke about in a video message he sent in 2023 on the occasion of a Marian congress in Aparecida, Brazil.
In the video, posted on Vatican News’ Portuguese channel on YouTube and now showing as “unlisted,” the Marian artwork can be seen above a wooden table in what appears to be a living room. Videos categorized as “unlisted” do not appear in searches.
Other works of art can be seen on the walls, including a cross and a portrait of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.
The Vatican press office did not respond to a request for comment by press time Friday about the use of Rupnik’s artwork on the Vatican News website or about its display in Pope Francis’ private residence.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil is one of the most recent of hundreds of Catholic churches and chapels to be decorated with Rupnik’s artwork. According to Centro Aletti, the massive installations, which cover nearly 25,000 square meters on the basilica’s north façade, were completed by the center’s “Art Atelier” between August and November 2021.
Hannah Brockhaus is the Catholic News Agency’s chief Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and holds a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
