Despite calls from abuse victims and their advocates to stop displaying artwork by the disgraced former Jesuit priest Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Vatican has again used one of the artist’s images to illustrate an online article. In addition, last week, a video was published by Argentine public TV channel Canal de la Cuidad that shows a Rupnik image hanging in Pope Francis’ personal apartment inside the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence. On the Vatican website, the Holy See’s communications department used a picture of a Rupnik mosaic of the dormition of Mary at the top of an article for the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary recently.
Vatican News articles about Catholic feast days have continued to regularly feature Rupnik’s art after public abuse accusations were made against the Slovenian priest at the end of 2022. Accused of sexually abusing women, Rupnik is currently under investigation by the Vatican’s doctrinal office after Pope Francis waived a statute of limitations. In June, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and the newly retired archbishop of Boston, sent a letter to the heads of Vatican offices asking them to display “pastoral prudence” by not displaying artwork that could imply either an exoneration or defense of those accused of abuse.
“We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering,” O’Malley wrote in a letter sent June 26, according to the commission he heads. The video depicting Pope Francis’ apartment shows an image of a sleeping St. Joseph with an angel above him. It can be seen hanging on the wall next to a door while Pope Francis met on Aug. 8 with Anita Fernández, the granddaughter of one of the victims murdered in the so-called “death flights” of the last military dictatorship in Argentina. The image looks to be a detail from a larger 2008 Rupnik mosaic installation in a chapel in a religious house in Croatia. Images and a description of the work can be found on the website of the Centro Aletti, Rupnik’s art school and theology center in Rome.
It is believed to be at least the second Rupnik artwork hanging in the pope’s personal quarters. The other is a mosaic of Mary and the Child Jesus, which the pope spoke about in a video message he sent to a Marian congress in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2023. In the video posted to the Vatican News Portuguese channel on YouTube, now showing as “unlisted,” the Marian artwork is seen hanging over a wooden table in what appears to be a sitting room. Videos categorized as “unlisted” do not appear in searches. Other artwork is visible on the walls, including a cross and a portrait of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.
The Vatican’s press office did not respond by time of publication to a request for comment Friday about the use of Rupnik’s art on the Vatican News website or its display in Pope Francis’ private apartment. The Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil is one of the latest of hundreds of Catholic churches and chapels to be decorated by Rupnik’s style of artwork. According to the Centro Aletti, the massive installations, covering almost 25,000 square feet on the basilica’s north facade, were completed between August and November 2021 by the centre’s “Art Atelier.”
