Despite no one in the Vatican being eager to fully address the Rupnik case, elsewhere it is destined not to fade away. Indeed, the ugly saga of the former Jesuit, a serial abuser of nuns, is unlikely to be forgotten or swept under the rug. All because of the artistic religious mosaics, depicting Jesus, the disciples or other biblical figures, created by Father Rupnik during his long artistic life within the most important sanctuaries in the world. Can these images coexist in spiritual places knowing that the one who conceived them has sown so much pain, to the point of being excommunicated in 2019? The question is not secondary and has ended up at the center of a commission in the sanctuary of Lourdes, where the mosaics of the priest Rupnik (recently expelled from the Society of Jesus but still a priest and never reduced to the lay state by the Vatican) are present. At this time a commission has been activated specifically to evaluate whether to destroy them or not. A working group of several people, led by the rector and also including a magistrate will make a decision by the end of the year.
Abuse, Father Rupnik is now a hot potato (also for the Vatican) and the Jesuits kick him out
They were inaugurated in 2008 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions. Those large mosaics were wanted by Wojtyla in the French sanctuary, but now they may have their days numbered. "We wanted victims of sexual abuse in the commission as well, since the author of these works is accused of assaults and spiritual abuses" said Bishop Jean-Marc Micas. At the moment nothing has been decided and nothing transpires, consultations will continue and at the end of the year the verdict will come out which could be oriented to completely dismantle the works considering the symbolic value of the Lourdes sanctuary.
The same thing is happening in the diocese of Lausanne, where a similar process has been started to evaluate what will be the fate of the artist priest's works. The mosaics of the Chemin de Joie in Geneva, created by the former Jesuit, constitute a path of 13 mosaic tables installed on the facades of churches and other places throughout the canton of Lausanne and made by artists from the Encanada center in Peru and the Aletti Center in Rome, where Marko Ivan Rupnik was director for many years.
A similar thing concerns the Sanctuary of Our Lady Aparecida, one of the most loved Marian places in Brazil. There, instead, Rupnik's mosaic work was halted after the Society of Jesus expelled him a few months ago.
Despite in the Vatican and in the Vicariate there are important works so far no one seems to have ever intended to raise similar issues, hoping that sooner or later everything ends in oblivion and the Rupnik case heads towards oblivion.
This article is automatically translated