Priest told me group sex was Holy Trinity, claims ex-nun
Expelled Jesuit famed for his religious art is also accused of forcing women to watch porn ‘for growth’
A PROMINENT Catholic priest forced nuns to watch porn to “grow spiritually” and compared group sex to the Holy Trinity, it was claimed yesterday.
One of Father Marko Rupnik’s alleged victims spoke publicly for the first time at a press conference in Rome, saying she was abused for years at the community the priest, a renowned religious artist, founded in his native Slovenia.
“He took me to pornographic theatres to help me ‘grow spiritually’,” claimed Gloria Branciani, who was a member of the community until 1994.
“He said that I would not grow spiritually if I did not meet his sexual needs. We had another nun have sex with us because he said it was like the Trinity,” said Ms Branciani, referring to the Holy Trinity, a central tenet of Christianity.
“He was always protected by everyone, and everything you could accuse him of was either minimised or denied.”
A second nun, Mirjam Kovak, also speaking publicly for the first time, said she had been psychologically abused by Rupnik and that she had reported him to Jesuit officials as far back as the early 1990s. She said she had been repeatedly rebuffed and dismissed.
Allegations surfaced about Rupnik’s behaviour in 2022, and last June, he was expelled from the Jesuits, the religious order to which Pope Francis belongs.
More than 20 people, mostly former nuns, have accused Rupnik of abuse, either when he was the spiritual director of the community of nuns in Slovenia or after he moved to Rome to pursue his career as an artist.
One former nun last year told Domani, an Italian newspaper, Rupnik was adept at controlling her psychologically. She said he forced her into sexual acts, and deployed “cruel psychological, emotional and spiritual aggression” to destroy her, particularly after she refused to have a threesome.
Since the scandal broke, Rupnik has not commented publicly. He is believed to be living in Slovenia.
The priest, who specialises in mosaics, came to prominence when Pope John Paul II commissioned him to redesign a chapel in the Vatican in the 1990s. Since then, he has worked on basilicas and churches around the world.
The press conference at which the two former nuns spoke was organised by a Us-based watchdog called Bishop Accountability, which has tracked sexual abuse within the Catholic Church for the last 20 years.
Anne Barrett Doyle, its co-director, described Rupnik as a “powerful cleric who was protected at the highest levels”. She called for the Vatican to set up an investigation into the Church’s response to the allegations of abuse and to publish the findings.
She also demanded that the Vatican establish a dedicated fund for nuns who have been sexually and spiritually abused by priests around the world, especially those forced out of their orders after becoming pregnant.
Five years ago, the Pope convened an unprecedented summit at the Vatican which was intended to confront sexual abuse in the Church head on. But cases such as Rupnik’s show almost nothing has changed, said Ms Barrett Doyle.
In 2020, Rupnik was excommunicated for absolving a woman with whom he had sexual relations, but it was rescinded two weeks later. Both steps were taken in secret.
“It was only in Dec 2022, after the news media revealed the Church had twice given Rupnik kid-glove treatment, that the Jesuits were shamed into issuing a public call for victims to come forward,” said Ms Barrett Doyle.
In February last year, the Jesuits announced that they had heard testimony from 15 women whose allegations they found to be credible, leading to Rupnik’s expulsion in June. But he remains a priest.
In October, the Pope waived the statute of limitations on the allegations that Rupnik faces and ordered the case to be reopened by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, which investigates wrongdoing by the clergy.