By 
The Vatican on July 22 denied reports circulating on blogs and social media that Father Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit accused by several women religious of sexual abuse, had been acquitted.
Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, described reports that the judges overseeing the case had reached a final decision as “absolutely unfounded.”
Bruni said the canonical proceedings remain underway and that the tribunal “is examining documentation received from the dioceses involved, the Society of Jesus, the interested parties, and information published by the media.”
Proceedings remain confidential
The Vatican spokesman stressed that no information about the case can be made public while the trial is underway. He said the confidentiality is intended both to protect due process and to prevent further harm to those affected by the case.
“During the trial, as in any judicial proceeding, information regarding the proceedings underway cannot be shared in any way,” Bruni said in the statement.
He added that the tribunal itself will take any necessary steps to obtain additional information should the judges determine that further evidence is required.
Bruni also noted that the investigation into Rupnik is a canonical criminal proceeding that was made possible after the statute of limitations for the alleged offenses was waived.
The tribunal will therefore be able to reach a determination regarding Rupnik’s possible guilt or innocence in accordance with canon law.
Allegations of psychological and sexual abuse
Rupnik is accused of psychological and sexual abuse during the 1990s in a religious community in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The community was founded by a religious sister for whom Rupnik served as a friend and spiritual adviser.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith received a complaint in 2021. The dicastery, now headed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, asked the Society of Jesus to investigate the allegations using an external investigator, who was a Dominican religious.
The Jesuits submitted the findings to the dicastery, which determined in October 2022 that the allegations were barred by the statute of limitations. Pope Francis ordered the case reopened the following year.
After the allegations became public, the Jesuits acknowledged that Rupnik had been excommunicated in 2020 for absolving a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. The Jesuits said he repented and that the penalty was lifted shortly afterward.
In 2021, nine women accused Rupnik of sexually, psychologically, and spiritually abusing them.
The Vatican statement also emphasized that the jurisdiction of Church courts is limited to the Church’s internal legal system. Any potential criminal liability under civil law would depend on the authorities in the countries where the alleged offenses may have occurred and on the applicable statutes of limitations.
Rupnik “remains subject to the laws of the countries in which the alleged crimes may have been committed, and the statute of limitations for those crimes is governed by the law of each country, independently of ecclesiastical authority,” Bruni said.
Frustration over pace of case
The Vatican’s response came after Laura Sgrò, an attorney representing five of Rupnik’s accusers, publicly expressed frustration over the pace of the proceedings and the lack of information about the canonical trial.
Sgrò told ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, that she had written Tuesday to Fernández, saying her clients felt “deeply discouraged and distressed” by the lack of transparency surrounding the case.
In November 2025, Pope Leo XIV asked Rupnik’s accusers for patience and said that “the Church must respect the rights of all people.”
Sgrò declined to comment in detail on the Vatican’s response, describing it only as “necessary.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
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He has been accused of sexual abuse by multiple religious women. Investigations and hearings have been conducted. Why is he still a priest?
He will always be a priest. Holy Orders is an indelible mark on the soul.
1582 As in the case of Baptism and Confirmation this share in Christ’s office is granted once for all. the sacrament of Holy Orders, like the other two, confers an indelible spiritual character and cannot be repeated or conferred temporarily.
However, he clearly hasn’t done anything to endanger the faith on the order of speculating that aliens might be a demonic manifestation.
He should be stripped of his priestly faculties. Case closed.
Could it be that the Vatican leaked a “trial balloon” of a possible acquittal just to gauge international sentiment? And seeing the outrage they retreated to the news being “absolutely unfounded” until they could come up with another sneaky way to save his despicable hide?
Never trust individual leaders in the Church to tell the truth at all times and in all places. I’ve seen too many cases of individual Church officials lying through their teeth, saying nothing in the face of lies, or artful obfuscation to make lies sound like truth.
That’d be ‘par for the course’.
Good hypothesis.
“Power corrupts, at whatever level.”
Maybe this is why Jesus said that to lead we must become servants of all not hierarchs over all. As in Mark 9:35 –
“If anyone wants to be first (protos), they must make themselves last of all (eschatos) and a servant of all (diakonos).”
Especially humble in witnessing with truth and love The Church’s great treasure: the Word of God, the Holy Spirit-anointed Apostolic revelation.
Yet what is ascertively ascending among us today is anti-Apostolic.
If this is not dealt with, we’ll become a Zombie Church. Christ’s Catholic Church in appearance only, with our lamp-stand removed.
“Repent, and do as you used to at first, or else, if you will not repent, I shall come to you and take your lamp-stand from its place.” Rev. 2:5.
The photo is edited. The background is the aula minor (smaller lecture hall) at the Angelicum in Rome. This is shameful to place such a wicked abuser pervert priest alongside good students at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the City, affectionately known as the Ange. Please fix and apologize.
The photo caption does not say where the photo was taken; it states it was taken in an interview with EWTN. So…apologize for what, exactly?
He’s a Jesuit and likely to have set foot in the Angelicum.
This article seems to downplay the situation in some ways, e.g, he is accused of crimes against “several” women. The number is upwards of 40 women! That’s quite a difference. Another establishment american outlet, the pillar, said the same. Now that there’s an american pope, the whitewashing from american outlets is beginning to start. The real scandal is that this is being deliberately delayed. There is no reason, barring bizarre circumstances such as the evidence being destroyed, all the judges becoming incapacitated, that this should have taken 2.5 years, or even the 15 months since Leo has been there. If leo had any sense of justice and right, he would have ordered it to be put at the head of the docket and completed as soon as possible. It could and should have been completed within several weeks, a maximum of a few months. The judges had the case in their hands to make a decision since at least last october. Canonical trials are not like civil ones where you have back and forth between attorneys, etc. Once all the evidence is gathered and the case goes to the judges, they simply review the evidence and give their vote in written form, usually individually, so it’s not even that they physically have to get together to argue it over. That doesn’t take very long. It is very rare that they go back to gather more evidence at that point. Consider that just to issue the official piece of paper appointing the judges took three months from when they had selected them. Prior to this it was noticeable that at least american outlets had stopped inquiring about the case.
“… the whitewashing from american outlets is beginning to start….”
Huh? What? Really?
Not here.
Carl, you might as well have placed Rupnik’s face atop a photo of some Catholic school students at a high school in Denver or at Ave Maria in Florida. If my face were there, I wouldn’t appreciate it. Would you? The response is immature. The photo isn’t real and it does distract from the story. Simple fix after a legitimate complaint? No, just a silly reply. Wouldn’t it be simple enough to change the photo?
“The photo isn’t real…”
How so? Are you saying that this photo is faked somehow?
How is my response “immature”?
Seriously. You’re not making any sense.
Yes, and now I’ll add that you’re foolish for believing that this article from EWTN that you linked to somehow doesn’t mean the photo was photoshopped. Do you really think the Angelicum invited Rupnik to the university where he’s a global interview when he had been excommunicated?
“After the allegations became public, the Jesuits acknowledged that Rupnik had been excommunicated in 2020 for absolving a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. The Jesuits said he repented and that the penalty was lifted shortly afterward.”
I stand corrected. It really does look photoshopped. This conference was prior to the allegations. I apologize for my comments. But I’d still like a different photo to be used when covering the crimes of Rupnik. The Angelicum conference is not involved, to my knowledge, in his abuse of women except in a very indirect manner given his abuse of women in the process of making his “art”. Perhaps the caption could reference the innocent bystanders in the background who thought they were participating in something Christian rather than Satanic.
https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/news/2020/2020-02-13-conference-and-concert-fourth-anniversary-havana.html
Very good, thank you. Yes, the interview was after a conference, and not long before allegations/actions by Rupnik were revealed.
Sir or madam:
Are you intending to message that you are a pompous ass?
We have one of two possibilites:
#1 There are more than one religious sister who has accused Rupnick of Sexual Abuse who has (have) brought forth false witness against a man and committed the sin of detraction. If this is the case, they should be excommunicated and denounced by name.
#2. The relgious who have made these accusations are telling the truth and rupnick’s faculties must be removed forever.
I think best to leave the decisions up to the court!
I agree, Ed. The accounts of the women who came forward publicly to Marko Rupnik– Gloria Branciani, Marjiam Kovač, and two identified by pseudonyms — are graphic and disturbing. A much larger group testified about Rupnik’s abusive actions during various investigations.
So there is no room for a comfortable middle ground where all of this can be resolved quietly, no possibilty of dismissing the reports of Rupnik’s actions towards these religious women as mere “misunderstandings” or differences in perception. This is an “either-or” situation.
That should have been “came forth publicly ABOUT Marko Rupnik,” sorry.
The Pontiff-of-Pachamama 2.0 cannot bring justice in the case of Jorge-Bergoglio’s-soulmate-and-sociopath-sex-abuser-Rupnik.
Darkened minds.
St.Paul wrote: “If for this life only you have hoped in Christ, you are of all men most to be pitied.”
Chris. The pope is dead, allow him to RIP!
His deeds and, most importantly, the direction he steered the Church towards are not dead though.
Maybe there’s even more to it:
Without wanting to be pointlessly conspiratorial, we also shouldn’t discount the possibility.
Hubristic heavyweight Church ‘leaders’, covertly unwilling to accept the anti-Apostolic character of clerical molestations of children & vulnerable adults (evidenced by the billions wasted on trying to defend cleric perpetrators, including by Archbishop Bergoglio), are conspiring to elect popes (F1 & L14) who’ll promise to normalise monstrous sexual immoralities, & even to portray them as Christian love!
Rather than engaging with the really difficult work of cleaning-up gross clerical sexual abuses (starting in Rome!), they seem to have decided it’s MUCH easier for them to ‘pull-the-wool-over-the-eyes’ of the naive majority of Catholics by normalising pornography & heinous sexual sins, and so making wicked clerical sexual abuses & perversions appear as just part of normal behaviour.
The horrid offensiveness of this tactic was well attested even before Christianity.
“Hateful to me as the gates of hell, are those who hide one thing in their heart and speak another.” Iliad 9:1,312.
Chris and Anna, I agree with your comments. And as Shakespeare said so well:
“The evil that men do lives after them.”
Well is he or not? Should be public knowledge.
Here’s my #1 takeaway from this article: “…In November 2025, Pope Leo XIV asked Rupnik’s accusers for patience and said that “the Church must respect the rights of all people…”.
Translation into American: ” Hey – we are following the established Vatican timeline on cases involving clerics such as this. Our McCarrick process took 10 or 20 years. So we are already way ahead here on the Rupnik case and are proceeding at Warp Speed. So just shut up! Pray, pay, & obey.”
[Also, what’s with the picture “controversy”??? (1) if someone is in a public place and ends up in the background of a pic that gets published – do they expect someone to identify everyone in the pic and get signed releases giving permission to print??? (2) the pic is from 2020. If someone is implying that it is photoshopped or something – where’s the proof of that???]
It’s ultimately a matter of priorities. Removing conservative critics of the papacy happens instantly. They are immediately sidelined. It takes years, however, for a progressive sexual predator to be brought to justice. The rank hypocrisy here is simply disgusting.
Matthew 23:27 –
“You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs and look handsome on the outside, but inside are full . . of every kind of corruption . . you appear to people from the outside like good honest men, but inside you are full of hypocrissy and lawlessness.”
How hypocritical: claiming Apostolic authority yet being anti-Apostolic.
Justice delayed is justice denied
Too much secrecy, too little accountability.
Maybe we should draw our own conclusions regarding what is in effect collusion (through extreme delay by Church jurists) with the perpetrator of multiple clear-cut cases of grievious sexual molestation of nuns.
Conclusion: the jurists and their papal & curial oversights are aware of thousands of cases of priests sexually molesting nuns and are terrified of the avalanche of claims likely to follow if they give justice to Rupnik’s victims. Hence the strategy of: “Delay & hope it all goes away!”
Other evil reasons have been pointed out but this reason also seems to ‘hold water’.
‘America Media’ 08.05.2026
Previously unpublished letters add to Rupnik abuse case allegations
In the letters, 22 women described alleged spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse by Father Rupnik while he was their spiritual director.