(ANALYSIS) When members of the Society of Jesus gather at Borgo Santo Spirito, their headquarters near the Vatican, they worship surrounded by the relics of Jesuit saints and works of sacred art.

This includes the work of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, who the Jesuits expelled in June 2023 after long investigations into allegations that he sexually and emotionally abused as many as 30 women in religious orders. The Vatican excommunicated the Slovenian priest in 2020 — but quickly withdrew that judgment.

Some abuse, according to alleged victims, took place while nuns were serving as models for Rupnik’s art.

The question the Vatican should answer, according to the leader of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, is whether it's time to remove Rupnik's art from Vatican websites and publications, as well as holy sanctuaries.

“We must avoid sending a message that the Holy See is oblivious to the psychological distress that so many are suffering,” wrote U.S. Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston in a June 26 letter to leaders throughout the Vatican curia. “I ask you to bear this in mind when choosing images to accompany the publication of messages, articles, and reflections through the various communication channels available to us.”

O'Malley’s full text has not been released, but quotations have appeared in Catholic media, including in a report posted on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops website.

Still, the Vatican News website continues — as seen on the June 28 “Saint of the Day” page — to feature an image of St. Irenaeus drawn from a Rupnik mosaic in the Catholic diplomatic office in Paris. The website of the Rupnik-linked Centro Aletti in Rome documents that his images are displayed in 200-plus locations around the world.

O'Malley stressed that "pastoral prudence" would suggest that displaying Rupnik’s art could “indicate indifference to the pain and suffering of so many victims of abuse.”

Two days after the cardinal's letter, five former nuns who have claimed abuse by Rupnik sent a letter of their own to more than 100 bishops and other Catholic leaders linked to institutions displaying the priest's art. The Associated Press quoted the letter: “Notwithstanding the years that have passed, the trauma that each suffered has not been erased, and it lives again in the presence of each of Father Rupnik's works.”

This drama is unfolding soon after remarks by Pope Francis, who said it has been positive for church life that journalists have avoided “profane” and “political” coverage of scandals.

“I would like to add the delicacy that you so often have in speaking of scandals in the Church: There are some and many times I have seen in you a great delicacy, a respect, an almost, I say, 'abashed' silence,” said Francis during a January meeting with accredited Vatican reporters. “Thank you for the effort you make to maintain this vision that is able to look behind appearances, to grasp the substance, that does not bend to the superficiality of stereotypes and preconceived formulas of the information-spectacle. ...”

Then, during the Catholic Media Conference in Atlanta, Paolo Ruffini, the leader of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, delivered a June 21 address to journalists, urging them to stay positive and help promote Catholic unity.

Ruffini noted: “Changing the narrative towards hope, recognizing the dynamism of good, setting hearts ablaze and orienting them towards communion, witnessing a different type of storytelling, which is generative and creative, this is the way to spread the good news and to give a Christian interpretation to anything that happens in the world.”

Asked about Rupnik during a question-and-answer session, Ruffini replied — according to a participant's video obtained by The Pillar website — that removing art from church life would not reflect the values of “civilization.”

Also, Catholics around the world have become accustomed to praying in the presence of Rupnik art and, he added, it is "inspiring" that the Jesuits have not removed the mosaic in Borgo Santo Spirito.

A journalist asked if Ruffini thought pulling Rupnik's work from Catholic sites would show a Vatican commitment to comforting victims.

Ruffini replied: “Well, I think you're wrong. I think you are wrong. I really think you are wrong. ... Removing, deleting, destroying art does not ever mean a good choice. This is not a Christian response.”

COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.