Two former nuns come out in public

In the wake of the scandal surrounding Slovenian mosaic artist and former Jesuit Marko Rupnik, two former nuns have come forward. Accompanied by their lawyer and an expert on clergy abuse, they will give their first public account of the abuse they suffered at a news conference in Rome on Wednesday. The date of the press conference was not chosen by chance. This comes on the fifth anniversary of the Vatican summit on abuses held by Pope Francis.

The press conference announcement stated, “The tragedy experienced by the attacked nuns deserves an appropriate and rapid response from church institutions.” Also in attendance, along with the nuns' lawyer Laura Sgro, was Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of bishopaccontaubility.org, the US-based monitoring and research group that has documented cases of abuse in the Catholic Church since 2003.

Investigation of the Rubinek case

Many women accuse Rupnik of using his power as a clergyman to make them sexually submissive. In 2020, he was temporarily excommunicated after committing crimes with a woman and seriously violating canon law. In 2022, the Jesuit order prohibited him from exercising his priestly office publicly and from making public statements. Last July, he was expelled from the Jesuit order. In October, the Pope ordered an investigation into Rubinek's case.

The Pope's surprise decision came as a result of the intervention of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Children. In September, Francis noted that there were “serious problems in dealing with the case and lack of closeness to the victims.” Rupnik is currently considered a type of “sacerdos vagans”, that is, a validly ordained Catholic priest without appointment to a diocese or order.