Previously unpublished letters from 22 women describing alleged abuse by former Jesuit priest Father Marko Rupnik have become part of the record in his ongoing canonical criminal case at the Vatican, adding another significant body of testimony to one of the Church’s most closely watched abuse proceedings.
According to OSV News, the letters were written by former members of the Loyola Community, which Rupnik once served as a spiritual adviser. In them, the women described alleged “spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse by Father Rupnik while he was their spiritual director.”
Fabrizia Raguso, a former member of the Loyola Community and the only alleged victim cited in the case who has agreed to be publicly identified, told OSV News that the letters date back more than two decades.
“During Easter 2000, Ivanka Hosta, superior of the Loyola Community, forced us to write a letter to Marko Rupnik in which we described our relationship with him, what he had done to us, and then to forgive him,” Raguso said.
According to Raguso, the women were told that writing the letters was connected to reconciliation during the Jubilee Year of 2000.
“The reason Ivanka gave us when she forced us to write about our experience with Rupnik was that on the occasion of the Jubilee (of the year 2000), we needed to seek reconciliation with him; I don’t know if she then had the letters delivered to Marko,” Raguso told OSV News.
The accounts contained in the letters reportedly resemble allegations previously made publicly against Rupnik by other women, including former Loyola Community member Gloria Branciani.
Rupnik has faced accusations of sexual, spiritual, psychological and physical abuse involving women and men. According to LifeSiteNews, his former Jesuit superiors have previously assessed the credibility of documented allegations against him as “very high.”
The case has drawn international attention since the allegations became widely public in late 2022, particularly because of questions surrounding earlier Church investigations and disciplinary actions involving Rupnik.
Rupnik incurred an automatic excommunication in 2020 after being found guilty of absolving in confession a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual relations. The penalty was subsequently lifted. Pope Francis denied personally intervening on Rupnik’s behalf.
Questions have also surrounded an earlier investigation that was closed because the accusations were considered beyond the applicable statute of limitations. Reports cited by LifeSiteNews alleged that Pope Francis had declined to waive the limitation period, although those claims have remained part of the broader controversy surrounding the handling of the case.
In 2023, Pope Francis authorized the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to proceed with the case despite the statute-of-limitations issue, allowing the allegations against Rupnik to be examined through the Church’s canonical process.
The proceedings have remained largely confidential, as canonical criminal cases handled by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith are ordinarily conducted under secrecy unless the Holy See determines otherwise.
That confidentiality became especially important in July after reports from Messa in Latino and AdVaticanum claimed that a five-judge panel had acquitted Rupnik of allegations involving violence.
The Vatican publicly rejected those reports.
“Reports concerning any decision whatsoever by the judges handling the case of the Reverend Marko Ivan Rupnik are entirely unfounded,” Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said.
The Vatican’s statement indicates that, contrary to those outside reports, no judgment in the canonical case had been announced.
The controversy has extended beyond the canonical proceedings to Rupnik’s internationally recognized religious artwork. His mosaics and other works have appeared at prominent Catholic sites, including the Sanctuary of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo, the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary at Lourdes.
Some works attributed to Rupnik have since been covered or removed as Catholic institutions have wrestled with how to respond to the allegations against the artist and the testimony of alleged victims.
The newly revealed letters provide investigators with accounts that reportedly date to 2000, years before the Rupnik scandal became widely known.
For Catholics following the case, the continuing proceedings carry broader questions of justice, accountability and care for those who say they suffered abuse within relationships of spiritual authority. The Vatican has not announced a final verdict, and Rupnik’s canonical criminal case remains ongoing according to the Holy See’s latest public statement.
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