Pope orders Vatican to reopen abuse case

Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican to reopen the case of a famous priest-artist accused of sexually, psychologically and spiritually abusing adult women, officials said.

Francis has also removed the statute of limitations on their claims, the Vatican added.

The announcement came just a day after the case of the Rev Marko Ivan Rupnik made headlines again when a diocese in his native Slovenia confirmed it had welcomed him in, after he was expelled by his Jesuit order this summer.

The Vatican said Francis’ abuse prevention commission had flagged “serious problems” in the way the case was handled initially.

Consequently, Francis asked the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “to review the case and decided to lift the statute of limitations to allow a process to take place”.

Rupnik was declared excommunicated by the Vatican in May 2020 for one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church’s legal code: using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

The Jesuit order kicked him out this summer after several adult women accused him of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuses dating back 30 years.

After conducting their own investigation, the Jesuits said they found the women’s claims to be “very highly credible”.

But they said the Vatican’s canonical norms in force at the time of the alleged abuse precluded harsher punishment for old cases involving the abuse of adults.

The scandal has been a headache for the Vatican and Francis himself due to suspicions that Rupnik received favourable treatment from the Holy See since Francis is a Jesuit and other Jesuits head the sex crimes office that investigated the priest and declined to prosecute him for the abuse claims.