In a harrowing revelation, two former nuns came forward on Wednesday, February 21, to expose decades-old sexual abuse perpetrated by Slovenian Catholic priest Marko Rupnik under the guise of spiritual guidance. Gloria Branciani and Mirjam Kovac, both former members of the Ignatius of Loyola community, held a press conference in Rome to shed light on the abuse they endured in the early 1990s. So far as many as four former nuns have opened up against the priest.
During the conference, Branciani recounted how Rupnik coerced them into watching pornography and engaging in sexual acts, including a threesome, all under the pretence of facilitating their spiritual growth. “He took me to pornographic theatres to help me ‘grow spiritually’… We had another nun have sex with us because he said it was like the Trinity,” Branciani revealed, highlighting the manipulation and exploitation they faced.
Branciani expressed frustration at the lack of action taken against Rupnik despite her efforts to report the abuse to senior Vatican officials in 1993. She noted that her accusations were dismissed, and Rupnik continued to enjoy protection within the Church.
“(Rupnik) was always protected by everyone, and everything that you could accuse him of was either minimised or denied…” she added.
“We hope that our testimony – and for this reason we’re exposing ourselves like this, because we feel protected and supported – will stimulate a greater transparency and a consciousness by everyone, and also maybe the pope who wasn’t really aware of the facts that occurred,” Gloria Branciani further emphasised.
Mirjam Kovac, another victim, echoed Branciani’s sentiments, emphasising how their youthful ideals and obedience were exploited for various forms of abuse, including sexual, spiritual, and psychological. Kovac’s testimony shed light on the pervasive culture of abuse within religious institutions.
She said, “We were all young girls, full of ideals. But these very ideals, together with our training in obedience, were exploited for abuses of various kinds: of conscience, of power, spiritual, psychic, physical and often sexual.”
Another nun, Klara (name changed for privacy), recounted her initial encounter with Rupnik in 1980 at an infectious diseases clinic in Ljubljana, where she was serving as a first-year nursing intern. Klara disclosed to an Italian newspaper in an extensive interview that Rupnik was hospitalised at the Slovenian clinic for an infection at the time.
“We were alone in the room, and while I was making the bed, the cross I was wearing around my neck slipped out of my shirt,” Klara revealed, expressing her lingering fear of persecution for her faith following her experiences with communism in Yugoslavia.
“To reassure me, he told me he was a Jesuit and had an art studio in Rome. When he was discharged, he invited me to participate in a youth group that he himself had created and which met at the Jesuit headquarters in Dravlje, Ljubljana,” she added.
In 1986, a year before Klara joined the Loyola Community, Rupnik, who was residing in the Jesuit community in Gorizia, visited Klara in her sublet apartment. Klara alleges that Rupnik “invited me to enter the bathroom with him where he began to masturbate in front of me over the sink.”
“Then he took my hand so that I continued [to masturbate him], while with the other [hand] he pushed my head down,” Klara recounted, detailing how she was forced into oral sex.
“You need it because you haven’t received enough love and attention from your father,” Rupnik reportedly told Klara, cautioning her not to disclose the incident to anyone.
“When he was certain that I would enter the community, he began to exploit me sexually as she pleased,” Klara reported. “I remember once, after driving two sisters from Mengeš to Gorizia, he stopped in the garage and began to grope me and then masturbate himself and me.”
“The same year, he chose me as an assistant while he was directing the Spiritual Exercises in the Stična Monastery, just to give me more days to have sex,” she noted. “I felt trapped and couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Everyone in the community told me I had to be humble and submissive.”
Marko Rupnik, known for his mosaic artistry and position as a priest in Slovenia, has faced accusations of sexual abuse spanning three decades, with at least 20 women coming forward as victims. Despite temporary excommunication and subsequent reinstatement after purported repentance, Rupnik’s alleged abuses continued unchecked until his expulsion from the Jesuit order in June 2023.
Anne Barrett Doyle of ‘Bishop Accountability,’ an organisation documenting church crimes, condemned the Church’s protection of Rupnik, describing him as a “powerful cleric” shielded at the highest levels. She lamented the lack of substantive change within the Church regarding accountability for such abuses.
Despite his expulsion from the Jesuit order, Rupnik maintains his role as a priest in the diocese of Koper, Slovenia, where his mosaic artwork adorns Catholic shrines worldwide, including those in Lourdes (France), Aparecida (Brazil), and the Apostolic Palace (Vatican). The case underscores the urgent need for transparency, accountability, and justice within religious institutions to prevent further exploitation and protect vulnerable individuals from abuse.
