Fr. Zollner’s statement marks another development in the widening controversy surrounding Fr. Rupnik, a well-known Jesuit priest and artist accused of abuse that he allegedly committed against at least nine women.
Newsroom (7/12/2022 10:30 AM, Gaudium Press) — Father Hans Zollner, a Jesuit priest and an expert in the fight against abuse, said the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “must respond” to questions surrounding the case of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, a member of the Society of Jesus accused of abuse.
Zollner is one of the leading experts in the field of safeguarding from sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. He is a member of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors since its creation in 2014 and the director of Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC), an Institute of Anthropology at the Gregorian University in Rome.
In a statement, Zollner believes that “it’s obvious that the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith has to respond.”
Zollner’s statement marks another development in the widening controversy surrounding Rupnik, a well-known Jesuit priest and artist accused of abuse that he allegedly committed against at least nine women.
According to the official statement of the Society of Jesus, the Department for the Doctrine of the Faith received a complaint against the Slovenian priest and requested that a preliminary investigation be initiated.
The investigation was carried out by a Dominican religious who heard the testimony of several people.
During the preliminary investigation, precautionary measures were taken against Rupnik, such as the prohibition to “exercise the sacrament of confession, spiritual direction, and giving the Spiritual Exercises.”
The provincial of the Jesuits in Slovenia inforned that the results were handed over to the Dicastery of the Holy See, which concluded that “the facts (of the case) in question should be considered to have exceeded the statute of limitations” and closed the case in October.
Despite this, the precautionary measures imposed during the previous investigation remain in force, but now as “administrative measures.”
Zollner said that as for the Society of Jesus, to which he belongs, “they have said what they could say and, from what I see, the explanations about what they arrived at with the ruling must be given by the dicastery.”
“They (the society of Jesus) are the ones who have determined that the facts (of the case) have exceeded the statute of limitations. The Society of Jesus can’t do that, it’s the competency of the dicastery,” he explained.
“That is in my opinion, since I am not an expert, but the dicastery must respond,” Zollner concluded.
‘A tsunami of injustice’
However, for Fr Gianfranco Matarazzo, former provincial of the Euro-Mediterranean Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), “today with the ’Rupnik case’ we’re clinging to the ’statute of limitations’ and hope that everything can end there. Is the Lord calling us to this approach?”
Fr. Matarazzo, a delegate for the social apostolate and abuse prevention for the dioceses of Sicily, criticized that the “Rupnik case” is “a tsunami of injustice, lack of transparency, questionable management, dysfunctional activity, personalized work, apostolic community sacrificed to the leader, and unequal treatment.”
For Matarazzo, the official statement from the Society of Jesus is “an exemplary case of justice denied” and “deadly damage to the Jesuit Order, but even more so to Holy Mother Church.”
- Raju Hasmukh with files from CNA
