What do we do with Father Rupnik’s art?

[Michie]

The day that I saw reports that Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik had serially abused members of a women’s religious community — while serving as their chaplain in the 1990s — I was scheduled to concelebrate Mass at an altar he had designed. During the Mass, I was seeing red. I was so angry that I could barely look at the adornments that he — along with members of the Roman atelier Centro Aletti — had made. My eyes tried feebly to look past the mosaics, to simply cut the tabernacle from my view.

But I couldn’t shake my eyes from the brilliant red side of the altar. The panel depicting the cross, emblazoned with the words Sanguis Christi, drips in my memory as I write these words. Blood of Christ, cleanse us.

Questions remain​

Since the recent revelation of his crimes, the Associated Press has reported that Father Rupnik has been convicted of a grave crime that, according to Church law, brings with it the penalty of automatic excommunication: He absolved in the Sacrament of Confession an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment. And while serious questions remain about the lack of transparency of the Society of Jesus concerning his crimes and the seemingly unusual leniency of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in the adjudication of his case (infuriatingly, he designed the logo for the 2022 World Meeting of Families after having been censured!), an additional question looms for believers: What do we do with Father Rupnik’s art?

Continued below.

What do we do with Father Rupnik's art?

Reports that priest-artist Father Marko Rupnik abused members of a women's religious community while serving as their chaplain raise many questions.

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