Despite calls from abuse victims and their advocates to stop displaying artwork by disgraced former Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Vatican has once again used one of the artist’s images to illustrate an article in line.
In addition, a video from the Argentine public television station Canal de la Ciudad last week showed a work by Father Rupnik hanging in the personal apartment of Pope Francis, inside the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta.
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On the Vatican website, the communications department of the Holy See used an image of a Rupnik mosaic of the Dormition of Mary at the top of an article for the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, August 15.
Vatican News articles on Catholic holidays have continued to regularly present works by Rupnik after public abuse allegations were made against the Slovenian priest, in late 2022.
Accused of sexually abusing women, Father Rupnik is being investigated by the Vatican’s doctrinal office after Pope Francis will lift the prescription.
In June, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and recently retired Archbishop of Boston (United States), sent a letter to the dicasteries of the Vatican Curia asking them to show “pastoral prudence” by not exhibiting works of art that could imply an exoneration or defense of those accused of abuse.
“We must avoid sending the message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that many are suffering,” Cardinal O’Malley wrote in a letter sent June 26, according to the commission he heads.
The video in which Pope Francis’ apartment is seen shows an image of a sleeping Saint Joseph with an angel above him. He can be seen hanging on the wall next to a door while the Holy Father 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 that Rupnik made in 2008 in a chapel of a religious house in Croatia. You can find images and a description of the work on the Aletti Center websitethe Rupnik art school and theology center in Rome.
This would be at least Rupnik’s second piece of art to hang in the Pope’s personal residence. The other is a mosaic of Mary and the Child Jesus, which the Pope spoke about in a video message he sent to a Marian congress in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2023.
In the video Posted on the Portuguese Vatican News YouTube channel, which is now listed as “unlisted,” the Marian artwork is seen hanging over a wooden table in what appears to be a living room. Videos classified as “unlisted” do not appear in searches.
Other works of art are visible on the walls, including a cross and a portrait of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
The Vatican press office did not respond by press time to a request for comment Friday about the use of Rupnik’s art on the Vatican News website or its display in Pope Francis’ private apartment.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil It is one of the last of hundreds of Catholic churches and chapels that have been decorated in Rupnik’s artistic style. According to the Aletti Center, the enormous installations, covering around 2,322 square meters on the north façade of the basilica, were completed between August and November 2021 by the center’s “Art Atelier.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Hannah Brockhaus
Hannah Brockhaus is Rome correspondent for Catholic News Agency. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.