Despicable. A famous European Jesuit. This has been widely covered in the Catholic press.
Slovenian mosaic artist Marko Rupnik, 69, is accused of sexually and psychologically abusing at least 20 women for nearly 30 years at a religious community in Slovenia.
"He took me to pornographic theatres to help me 'grow spiritually'," Gloria Branciani, who was a member of the community until 1994, told journalists at a press conference in Rome.
"He said that I would not grow spiritually if I did not meet his sexual needs," she said, describing how he sexualised religious concepts.
"We had another nun have sex with us because he said it was like the Trinity," Branciani said, referring to the central Christian doctrine of three persons within one God.
Rupnik was briefly excommunicated in 2020 for absolving someone of having sexual relations with him, but was reinstated after he formally repented.
He was finally expelled from the Jesuit order -- of which Pope Francis is a member -- last June.
In October, Francis waived the statute of limitations on the offences, opening the way for potential disciplinary proceedings.
"We were young but our ideals were exploited by abuses of conscience, power, spirit, body and often sex," said former nun Mirjam Kovac, who left the community in 1996.
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