Report: Father Rupnik, other ex-Jesuits are living in Benedictine convent of nuns
March 04, 2025
Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, the Slovenian priest accused of abusing over 20 women and one man, is living in an Italian Benedictine convent of nuns, La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana (The Daily Compass) reported.
In 2020, the former Jesuit was briefly excommunicated for the canonical offense of absolving an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment. Following his expulsion from the Society of Jesus in 2023, he was incardinated in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has been investigating abuse allegations against Father Rupnik since October 2023.
According to La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana’s report, Father Rupnik and other former Jesuits associated with Centro Aletti in Rome have moved into the Convent of Montefielo in Casperia. The nuns, according to the report, still live in the convent but are in the process of moving elsewhere at the behest of Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, who owns some of the convent’s property.
La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana also reported that “in the nearby village of Poggio Catino, the cardinal also owns a former farmhouse with a swimming pool, where it seems he had accommodated” Father Rupnik and the other former Jesuits until their move into the convent.
Father Rupnik led Centro Aletti, the artistic center in Rome, from 1995 to 2020 and remains active there. In addition his work as an artist, Father Rupnik is a spiritual writer who contributed a volume (Italian, English) to the Vatican publishing house’s 2017 series on the theology of Pope Francis (review).
Even after Rupnik’s brief excommunication and the imposition of some restrictions upon his ministry, Pope Francis reappointed him a consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in December 2021 (p. 675). Pope Francis discussed one of Father Rupnik’s images in a June 2023 video message (1:37-2:13), six months after the Society of Jesus invited anyone abused by Father Rupnik to come forward. A different Rupnik image was visible in the papal apartment in August 2024 (video, 0:08).
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