Woman who says she was abused spiritually and sexually by a once-famous Jesuit demands transparency
One of the first women who accused a once-exalted Jesuit artist of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse has gone public
ROME (AP) — One of the first women who accused a once-exalted Jesuit artist of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse went public Wednesday to demand transparency from the Vatican and a full accounting of the hierarchs who covered for him for 30 years.
Gloria Branciani, 59, appeared at a news conference with one of the most prominent Vatican-accredited lawyers in Rome, Laura Sgro, to tell her story in public for the first time. She detailed the abuses of the Rev. Marko Rupnik, including his fondness for three-way sex “in the image of the Trinity” that, if confirmed, would constitute a grave perversion of Catholic doctrine as to be considered false mysticism.
Rupnik’s mosaics decorate churches and basilicas around the world, including at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes, France, the forthcoming cathedral in Aparecida, Brazil, and the Redemptoris Mater chapel of the Apostolic Palace.
The Jesuits kicked him out of the order last year after he refused to respond to allegations of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuses by about 20 women, most of whom, like Branciani, were members of a Jesuit-inspired religious community he co-founded in his native Slovenia that has since been suppressed.
