A ghost haunts the Apostolic Palace: the shadow of a Jesuit master of mosaics, popular with three popes and accused of numerous abuses. And there is a silent observer, also a Jesuit, who calls for transparency in the fight against psychosexual manipulation of fragile people.
It is a story that cannot be archived.
The sudden hospitalization of Pope Francis in Gemelli at the end of March last year and the Easter ceremonies that followed obscured a crucial event of those days: the resignation of the Jesuit Hans Zollner by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which he himself co-founded.
In the Vatican world, for almost a decade, Father Zollner was the tireless promoter of initiatives designed to urge the episcopate to do so Don’t ignore the seriousness of the sexual abuse phenomenon and to understand the need to organize structures to deal with the resulting problems. From listening to the victims, to the importance of investigating the phenomenon, to the urgency of healing the wounds left by the violence.
Zollner, director of the Department of Anthropology at Gregorian University, was the driving force behind it, albeit in a reticent manner Commission for the Protection of Minors which Francis founded and entrusted to the American Cardinal Sean O’Malley, and which, with the reform of the Curia desired by the Pope, was even included in the structure of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
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When the news broke, a communiqué from the commission specifically highlighted Zollner’s contribution to the implementation of many of his projects and programs, culminating in the World Summit of Presidents of Bishops’ Conferences convened by Francis in February 2019. The religious are defined “Ambassador of Protection” of the world’s minors.
The downer, however, is that Zollner did not retire, but he resigned and voiced strong criticism.
In his opinion, the relationship between the Commission and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is not clear. It is not clear how the members are selected and what roles they each have. It’s not even clear, adds the religious man, how Funds are managed the commission. However, the most relevant point of criticism concerns the lack of “transparency about the decision-making methods within the Commission”. Too often, according to Zollner, “insufficient information and vague communications were provided to members about the way some decisions were made”. heavy words. And the thought leads to a conspicuous situation that has so far been in Vatican found no explanations and that remains a matter of public opinion, especially Catholic: the Rupnik case.
Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit, is a Slovenian artist (mosaic author) and theologian well respected in the Vatican and has been the darling of high church hierarchies during three pontificates. He is largely responsible for the mosaic decoration of the “Redemptoris Mater” chapel in the Apostolic Palace, where spiritual retreats are preached during Lent in the presence of the Pope. His mosaics can be found in basilicas, churches and sanctuaries, e.g FatimahSan Giovanni Rotondo, Lourdes, MadridSanto Domingo, Kraków, Washington and many more places. He would have been defined as an “artist and court preacher” in the Renaissance.
In recent years, however, allegations of sexual abuse (with adults) against him have increased. Precise cases that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has not rejected as false but has examined required.
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However, there is one episode, absolutely proven by the Church commissions, which takes on the character of a case for the Catholic Church heaviness highest: confessing to having acquitted a woman he had psychologically manipulated and abused, with whom he had sexual relations. For the Catholic canonical teaching, this is no longer a crime/sin, but a crime/sacrilege, because the power of absolution – to symbolically open and close the entrance to the kingdom of heaven – is a sacrament. For this reason, after careful investigation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree automatic excommunication (latae sententiae). Latin is a beautiful and concise language. Latae sententiae means that the moment the offense is committed, it is as if someone is already knocking on the offender’s door and the verdict is “brought” to him. Except that the excommunication imposed on Rupnik (May 2020) was necessary papal confirmation, which never came. Within weeks the excommunication was reversed. There was no transparency about the reasons.
In the meantime, the Society of Jesus has imposed a number of restrictions on Rupnik’s public activities, and as rumors of his behavior intensify towards the end of 2022, the delegate responsible for following up the investigation against him, Father Johan Verschueren, has done so urged all wounded to report. Repubblica revealed last February that the Jesuits had compiled a 150-page dossier of repeated claims credentials of “psychological abuse, abuse of conscience, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse” committed for decades from 1985 to 2018.
You can’t forget all that. Also, the strange story of the excommunication for the miraculously sacrilegious absolution cannot be archived cancelled. Pope Francis emphasized in a recent interview with the Associated Press that “we all are.” sinner. But yes, I forgive you the crime, but you pay and make amends.” It was not seen in the Rupnik case. Rupnik received no punishment and this is – as is now known – the worst injustice that can be inflicted on the victims. That is why attention is drawn to the Apostolic Palace.
Francis is the Pope working in the field of abuse mostly intervened do cleaning. He has dismissed many bishops guilty of a cover-up, he has expelled two cardinals from the College of Cardinals, he has canonically tried a cardinal (Mc Carrick) and a Vatican ambassador (Nuncio Wesolowski), and expelled from the clerical state a cardinal with immunity in court at home (Pell) was not mated severe the procedures for investigating high-level offenders. What’s more, he is dealing with the majority of bishops’ conferences, which silently sabotage and do not want to open the cabinets with the corpses.
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For this reason, Father Zollner’s resignation from the anti-abuse commission is a wake-up call. When Francis received the commission in an audience a few days ago, he requested that there be “an annual report on what you think is working well and what is not, so that you can make the appropriate changes.” It can be a signal.