ROME — ROME (AP) — The Vatican took the weird step on Monday of asserting that it had named judges to resolve the destiny of a well-known ex-Jesuit artist accused of sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing ladies.

The case of the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik badly tarnished the legacy of Pope Francis, given ideas that the Jesuit pope and the Jesuit-headed Vatican intercourse abuse workplace had protected certainly one of their very own.

The Vatican workplace that regulates clergy intercourse abuse circumstances, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Religion, mentioned that the 5 judges named to listen to the Rupnik case embody ladies and monks who’re exterior to the Vatican paperwork. In an announcement, it mentioned that such composition was “performed with the intention to higher assure, as in any judicial course of, the autonomy and independence of the aforementioned courtroom.”

The assertion advised an implicit recognition that before now, the Vatican’s dealing with of the Rupnik file had been something however autonomous or impartial.

Rupnik’s mosaics grace a few of the Catholic Church’s most-visited shrines and sanctuaries world wide, together with on the shrine in Lourdes, France, within the Vatican, a brand new basilica in Aparecida, Brazil, and the chapel of Pope Leo XIV’s personal Augustinian spiritual order in Rome.

The Rupnik scandal first exploded publicly in late 2022 when Italian blogs began reporting the claims of nuns and grownup ladies who mentioned that they had been sexually, spiritually and psychologically abused by him, together with through the manufacturing of his paintings.

Rupnik’s Jesuit spiritual order quickly admitted that he had been excommunicated briefly in 2020 for having dedicated one of many Catholic Church’s most critical crimes — utilizing the confessional to absolve a girl with whom he had engaged in sexual exercise.

The case continued to create issues for the Jesuits and Francis, since extra ladies got here ahead saying they too had been victimized by Rupnik.

The Jesuits ultimately kicked him out of the order after he refused to reply to allegations of non secular, psychological and sexual abuse by about 20 ladies, most of whom have been members of a Jesuit-inspired spiritual neighborhood that he co-founded in his native Slovenia that has since been suppressed.

The Vatican initially refused to prosecute, arguing the claims have been too outdated. The reluctance to prosecute uncovered each the Vatican’s authorized loopholes, the place intercourse crimes in opposition to grownup ladies are not often prosecuted, and {that a} well-known artist like Rupnik may need obtained favorable therapy by his fellow Jesuits.

Whereas Francis denied interfering in a 2023 interview with The Related Press, he ultimately caved to public strain and waived the statute of limitations in order that the Vatican might open a correct canonical trial.

Two years later, the Vatican assertion on Monday indicated that the trial was about to begin.

Up to now, Rupnik hasn’t responded publicly to the allegations and refused to reply to his Jesuit superiors throughout their investigation. His supporters at his Centro Aletti artwork studio have denounced what they’ve known as a media “lynching.”

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