Rupnik the vagabond finds home in Slovenian diocese

Father Marko Rupnik has found a home. This is not the happy ending of Lady and the Tramp, but the foregone conclusion of the Rupnik affair, who is a tramp by profession. The news broke two days ago: apparently the Bishop of Koper, Monsignor Jurij Bizjak, is welcoming the ex-Jesuit with open arms, ad experimentum in his diocese. The Apostolic Nuncio in Slovenia since 2019, Msgr Jean-Marie Speich, is said to have resolved all the Slovenian bishop’s eventual qualms: after all, Rupnik is a good chap, who has no sentence hanging over him, in short, a fiery but harmless Latin lover, whose spiritual and 'Trinitarian' love has been misunderstood and repudiated by his “sweethearts”, who are still too corporal.

Unfortunately, the Nuncio has told only one part of the truth: Rupnik is free of any conviction, the Pope has lifted his excommunication and has also prevented a trial; Rupnik’s former superiors in the Society of Jesus have freed him from all restrictions by dismissing him from the order. But the missing part of the truth is that Rupnik sexually abused about twenty religious women and psychologically abused many more; he repeatedly made a mockery of all three religious vows. Details that neither the receiving bishop nor the Nuncio thought to take into account.

As we said, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Because the crafty Jesuits pretended to tear their garments in the face of Rupnik's insubordination, his unwillingness to collaborate, his ostentatious superiority towards his victims, choosing the ‘harshest’ of punishments: dismissing him from the Order. It’s the same old story: what more could we, poor people, do? And who could have imagined that Rupnik would find a bishop to take him in, out of only 5300 Catholic bishops in the world, and thus remain unpunished and at large?

Obviously, the Jesuits could have and should have demanded Rupnik's resignation from the clerical state (see here), if only on the strength of the cleric's repeated and serious disobedience and obstinacy, but they did not. We repeat: it is not that they could not but they did not want to. And they remain the ones most responsible for Rupnik's exemption and what he may continue to do. Starting with the Delegate for International Houses in Rome, Father Johan Verschueren.

According to Silerenonpossum, which broke the news, "all the documentation arrived at Borgo Santo Spirito and some people turned up their noses. ‘In fact’ they report, ‘Rupnik has not asked to exercise his ministry there but to continue holding spiritual exercises and making mosaics’”. Rupnik has clearly asked to continue doing what he has always done: the clericus vagans or vagabundus, even if formally received, and in the future incardinated, in a diocese in which he will never set foot.

And allegedly this was the reaction from Borgo Santo Spirito: "When we received the communication from the bishop of Koper we limited ourselves to communicating to him the document with Rupnik's resignation from the Society of Jesus. More than this we cannot do. It is clear that if the Nuncio and the bishop proceed with this conviction it means that there is Someone protecting Rupnik who is far more important than this curia”.

It is incredible how the Jesuits still try to defend their 'virginity' in this scandalous affair. First of all, it turns out that they were the ones who offered this freedom to Rupnik on a silver platter, refusing to apply to the Dicastery for the Clergy for his dismissal from the clerical state and proceeding to his dismissal from the Order, something Rupnik feared would happen. Only to then pretend to be sorry - Father Verschueren in the lead - for not being able to reduce him to the lay state.

But there is a second, more important point: the entire property of the Centro Aletti belongs to the Jesuits (although there is more than one suspicion that the Vicariate of Rome, i.e. Rupnik's other crony, Cardinal De Donatis, is manoeuvring for the purchase) and Sr Campatelli and the other sisters continue to live there undisturbed, their activities continue without problems and, hear, hear! the Reverend Fr Rupnik continues to stay there too. The ex-Jesuit shuttles between the Centro Aletti, where one can see him at lunch, dinner, and other times of the day, and the Centro Aletti's 'annexe', the Maria Consolatrice Spirituality House in Santa Severa, in the suburbicarian diocese of Porto-Santa Rufina.

Santa Severa, an enchanting location overlooking the sea, is the place where Rupnik has always felt at home: there he went to preach the Exercises, there he mosaicked and frescoed everything he could: the church, the refectory, the chapel, the atrium, the conference room, and even a stone in the garden (see here). We don’t know about the bathrooms, but it is probably better not to investigate.

So, for the umpteenth time, the Jesuits have Rupnik under their noses, allow him to stay in their properties and don't lift a finger. Just as they did in all the years when they had theoretically restricted him, while he came and went, as and when he pleased, and did what he wanted. Including owning a company with hundreds of thousands of euros, without poor Father Verschueren noticing anything.

Rupnik and the Jesuits, despite their divorce, continue to share the same profound identity, which has little to do with the legacy of St Ignatius: unpunished and unrepentant. So the Tramp finds a home; and he can have as many Ladies as he wants.