I am aware that it is very hasty to analyze and assess the case of the Jesuit priest Fr. Marko I. Rupnik (Slovenia, 1954).
Perhaps we will have to wait a bit to have more data, confirm what type of accusations we are talking about, if they are ratified, if more appear, what was the process that was followed within the Society of Jesus, how it evolved, in what current state it is find, what the Jesuits did or failed to do.
I have to confess that it occurred to me to write about this assumption when this afternoon I was in a chapel where I had a large mosaic by Rupnik in front of me. Which, by the way, prevented me from a level of minimal concentration on what I was experiencing, the mass. But hey, the Lord will forgive me.
The truth is that I am a witness to the perplexity and suffering that people close to Fr. Rupnik, who have studied his work, who have spent hours talking with him, analyzing his work, are producing the series of information about this case.
Mediatically it is what we would call a vein. He is a famous artist, whose work is covered by more than half the world, inside and outside the Vatican.
He is also a Jesuit with abundant writings on spirituality and culture, with his own ideas, with which it is understood that there is a plus of duty to be exemplary.
And, to make matters worse, it is a case of Me Too from the book, sexual relations with nuns, therefore women, of legal age. Let me not go into detail or describe some of the ideas in the victim’s statement justifying what seems like a full-blown abuse of spiritual power.
Said which, I would like to remind, without this serving so that nobody can say that I am justifying the unjustifiable, -let us not forget that distinguishing is not justifying-, that there is an internal forum and an external forum.
I am not going to delve into this question now, neither from the moral point of view nor from the canonical point of view.
I only point out the fact that if Christianity is characterized by something, it is by the distinction of these jurisdictions, with their singularities.
That is, we are all sinners. A no-brainer. We all commit sins, sins that have a cause or causes. We are unfaithful Seventy times seven. If we fall into sin, the greatness of the encounter with Jesus Christ lies in the fact that it gives us an opportunity for repentance, forgiveness, penance, purpose of amendment, conversion, after all.
Christianity is a path of conversion. The paradox of Christianity is that a sinner, the most sinful, the most horrible sinner, can manifest himself as such before a God who forgives him. And that forgiveness is an incentive for the greatness that expresses the dimension of God’s own forgiveness.
But this process does not remove, it is not an obstacle, so that if an act has been committed that implies an injustice with third parties, there is an investigation process, a trial and a sentence. And above all a process of accompaniment to the victims, whose centrality cannot be ignored. This exterior process does not make the interior incompatible, nor should it impede or invade the interior.
It would be unfortunate if, due to certain tendencies or forces, we forget about the internal forum and the relationship with the sacred, with God, is only conditioned by the external forum.
The case of Fr. Rupnik should not, in principle, be the case of the Society of Jesus.
Not in this case, in others, a dynamic of harassment of the inner forum is perceived, of demolition of conscience and violation of the dynamics of the sanctuary of conscience. A threat to an area that should never serve to justify anything, but that God saves as it forms part of the identity of the person’s relationship with God.
We would end up like in Canada where it was claimed that priests were obliged to break the sacramental seal.
By the way, we should not forget what the media so often forget. The phrase that said: who am I to judge anyone.
If it is necessary to judge, let God do it in conscience and through those who are competent for this. Please don’t let the media do it.