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Victims of a disgraced celebrity priest are “deeply disheartened and distressed” at the slow pace and near-total opacity of their alleged abuser’s trial at Church law in the Vatican. The high-profile case of Father Marko Rupnik tarnished the reputation of Pope Francis and continues to challenge the Vatican’s – and Pope Leo XIV’s – commitment to orderly and transparent justice, especially in matters of clerical abuse and coverup. The attorney for five of the women who accuse Rupnik has written to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, head of the Vatican department responsible for trying the priest. In the letter, the text of which has been obtained by Crux Now, attorney Laura Sgrò – who practices both canon and civil law – complains of procedural irregularities, apparent foot-dragging, and a frustrating lack of transparency. Sgrò told Crux Now she prepared the letter at her clients’ request and sent it Tuesday, July 21, after rumors of Rupnik’s acquittal – neither confirmed nor denied by the Vatican – began swirling earlier this week. “It is my clients’ express wish that this communication be made public,” Sgrò told Crux Now. “Since the start of the proceedings (if indeed they have even begun),” Sgrò said, “we have received no communication whatsoever.” “We have decided, following the rumors circulating over the past many hours,” she said, “to send a further communication to Fernandez and to release it publicly.” In the letter, Sgrò suggests that neither she nor her clients have been officially told the trial is even underway, let alone how far the proceedings have progressed. She says her clients have not been called to testify, nor even been informed who the judges in the case are. Sgrò says she has not even received notice of a ruling on her clients’ motion to be admitted as injured parties in the process. These are “some basic, fundamental questions regarding a criminal proceeding,” Sgrò wrote, “involving victims who first reported their abuse over thirty years ago.” “Has the trial begun? If so, what is its current status? Who are the judges? What was the outcome of my clients’ requests to be admitted as injured parties in the proceedings? Why have these women not been heard as witnesses?” Sgrò wrote. “My clients feel abandoned and betrayed,” Sgrò told the prefect, “victims, once again, of a system that has never welcomed, protected, or comforted them.” Crux Now asked the head of the discipline section at the DDF, Archbishop John Kennedy, whether the dicastery is in receipt of the letter sent to the prefect, but our queries were without reply at time of publication. Sgrò mentions Kennedy in the letter, saying she requested a telephone conversation with him but was instead referred, “by a polite lady who did not see fit to introduce herself, to an email address from which I have never received a response to my communications.” Crux Now has also sent a request for confirmation to Holy See press office director Matteo Bruni, but that request was also without reply at time of publication. The Rupnik case in brief The case of Father Marko Rupnik, which gained global notoriety during the Francis pontificate, is almost impossibly complex. Its handling by senior Vatican authorities including Pope Francis has received sustained public scrutiny since December 2022. Rupnik, a former Jesuit, is accused by multiple witnesses – “highly credible” according to the Vatican’s own investigator – of serial spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse against dozens of victims. Rupnik allegedly carried out his abuse over three decades, much of it under the noses of his erstwhile Jesuit superiors. Rupnik grew to worldwide renown during the course of what is credibly alleged to be his inveterately abusive career as a mosaic artist and spiritual master very much in demand as a speaker and retreat leader. Most of Rupnik’s alleged victims were women religious, several of whom belonged at one time to a congregation of sisters Rupnik himself had helped to establish in his native Slovenia. Rupnik allegedly abused his victims as part of his “creative process” – a fact survivors, victim-advocates, and observers say makes his abuse inseparable from his “art” works, which are found in shrines and chapels around the world, and even in the Apostolic Palace. Powerful men in the Jesuit order and in the Vatican allegedly either turned a blind eye to complaints against him for years, or else – it is also alleged – actively worked to discredit his accusers. Rupnik’s victims tried for years to get action from Rupnik’s erstwhile Jesuit superiors, who reportedly first heard their complaints in the 1990s. In 2019, Bishop Daniele Libanori, a Jesuit priest and auxiliary bishop in Rome who was separately investigating the Slovenian religious congregation Rupnik had helped found, finally brought some of the abuse allegations to competent Roman authorities. The then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decided there was a case to answer against Rupnik but ruled that the statute of limitations had expired and so declined to prosecute the priest. The Jesuits expelled Rupnik, who nevertheless remained a priest in good standing and shortly after his expulsion was incardinated in the Slovenian diocese of Koper, generating global outrage. Details of the case against Rupnik and its handling have emerged piecemeal, over several years. Those details include a secret Vatican trial of Rupnik on charges he illicitly absolved an “accomplice” in a sin against the sixth commandment—technical legal jargon for a sexual partner—which is a serious crime at Church law. Rupnik was secretly – and only briefly – excommunicated for that offense, in 2020, the same year he preached the Lenten retreat to the papal household, widely recognized as the highest honor a preacher may receive. Under sustained media pressure and prodding from his own circle, Pope Francis in 2023 reversed course and decided to waive the statute bar and ordered a review of the whole Rupnik matter. Credibility and the common good The Vatican took two years to assemble a college of judges to try the case, and has offered no official new regarding its status or progress, though both Kennedy and Fernandez have given occasional assurances to inquiring journalists that the matter is in hand. In the autumn of last year, Pope Leo XIV told journalists the trial was underway, and expressed hope the legal process would shed light and achieve a measure of justice. “A new trial has recently begun,” Leo told reporters outside the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo in November 2025. He noted the appointment of judges – announced the previous month – and acknowledged that “processes for justice take a long time.” “Hopefully,” Leo said, “this trial that is just beginning will be able to give some clarity and justice to all those involved.” “The credibility of these proceedings is essential pro bono communi (for the common good),” Sgrò reminded Fernandez in her Tuesday letter. Sgrò wrote that Church authorities should view her clients “as a resource rather than an obstacle in the pursuit of truth.” In an exclusive interview with Crux Now conducted by Senior Vatican Correspondent Elise Ann Allen last year for her book, Leo XIV: The Biography, Leo praised abuse victims’ patience and acknowledged that trials too often take too long. “In order to have, as much as possible, a reliable system of justice that respects the rights of all, takes time,” he said. “We live in Italy, I lived in Peru, even in the United States, many processes that go into the courts take years and years, and that’s just a fact,” he said. “The fact that the victim comes forward and makes an accusation and the accusation presumably is accurate, that does not take away the presumption of innocence,” he said. “The priests also have to be protected, or the accused person has to be protected, their rights have to respected.” “[W]e’re in kind of a bind there,” the pontiff said. “The church certainly has tried to make new legislation that would both speed up the process,” and at the same time respect “victims and their pain and their right to have that pain recognized in some kind of response from the Church.” At the same time, the pope said, “The protection of the rights of the accused party is also an issue.” Canon lawyers, experts in penal law, and observers across the spectrum of opinion meanwhile agree that the Rupnik case is both highly unusual and unusually protracted, even by the glacial pace of ecclesiastical justice. Sgrò, for her part, told Fernandez her clients “have no intention of meekly abandoning their quest for justice or stepping back from seeing the harm they suffered acknowledged.” “We all hope that this journey can be completed,” she wrote, “with mutual respect for our respective roles, yet with a shared purpose.” The lawyer said the swirling rumors and Vatican silence have been the very opposite of edifying and said she finds the situation “alarming and distressing.” “The Church, no less than the victims, needs transparency, justice, and truth,” Sgrò wrote. Follow Chris Altieri on X: @craltieri

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