Why controversy skipped the Rupnik unveiling in Brazil

SÃO PAULO – A major Marian shrine in Brazil unveiled the last of four giant mosaics by an accused serial rapist earlier this month.

The Sept. 12 unveiling of the fourth and final façade of the Basilica of Aparecida went off with little controversy in the country, a fact remarkable given the global notoriety of the accused priest, Father Marko Rupnik.

The Slovenian-born former Jesuit is accused of serial sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse over a period of thirty years, much of it in Rome, during which he built a reputation as a mosaic artist and a spiritual master.

Church watchers and advocates for victims of clerical abuse criticized the decision by the Basilica of Aparecida – which is run by Redemptorist priests – to proceed with the installation of the mosaics, but the ceremony did not generate much controversy in Brazil.

According to sources familiar with the process, the works began in 2019, after the Redemptorists and the Diocese of Aparecida in São Paulo state decided that Rupnik’s work could help turn the shrine into an international pilgrimage destination.

In 2019, Rupnik was more than just a known quantity. He was something of an international celebrity in ecclesiastical circles. His works and the works of his Rome-based Centro Aletti workshop had decorated hundreds of shrines and chapels around the world.

Rupnik and his studio’s works adorn hundreds of churches around the world, including the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, the Sanctuary of Fátima in Portugal, and the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican.

The 2019 decision to use Rupnik did spark controversy in Brazil, but not because of Rupnik’s alleged abuse, knowledge of which had not yet reached the public.

Instead, a small group of scholars and faithful with extensive knowledge of the work of Brazilian-born painter Claudio Pastro (1948–2016) raised objections.

One of the leading sacred artists of his generation, Pastro had been exclusively responsible for the Basilica’s decoration since 2001.

Pastro’s works depicted biblical stories inside the church, while its façades were covered with exposed clay bricks evoking both the clay from which the image of Our Lady Aparecida is made and the material from which human beings were created.

The covering of the brick façades with Rupnik’s mosaics – which also depict biblical narratives such as the Creation, the Exodus, the Gospels and the Apocalypse – was seen as undermining the distinctive character of Pastro’s work.

The project, nonetheless, went ahead. In 2022, the northern façade was completed, and two years later the southern façade was unveiled.

By then, several allegations against Rupnik were already public.

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 under 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.

The then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gathered information available from different investigations including internal Jesuit probes and found a case to answer, but ruled the charges against Rupnik were beyond the statute of limitations and archived the case.

The Jesuits expelled Rupnik in 2023 – for disobedience, not for his crimes of abuse, allegedly committed under cover of his “creative process” and his position as a spiritual director – and the Koper diocese in his native Slovenia allowed him to join the clergy there.

For a while, it appeared Rupnik would escape justice entirely.

Under sustained media pressure and prodding from his own circle, Pope Francis later in 2023 reversed course, waiving the statute of limitations and ordered a review of the entire Rupnik matter.

The Vatican took two years to assemble a college of judges to try the case, and has offered little official news regarding its status or progress.

In recent years, several churches have opted to remove Rupnik’s mosaics.

Pope Leo XIV ordered that images of the former Jesuit’s creations be removed from Vatican websites, while the Basilica of Lourdes and the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington covered or restricted access to his murals.

In Brazil, one of the figures who did object to the completion of the Aparecida Shrine project even after the allegations against Rupnik had become public was Robson Sávio Reis Souza, who has a PhD in social science and a researcher of sociology of religion.

“Despite the allegations, the Shrine kept the plans, claiming that the mosaics are a collective work and that they involved other art studios, including some led by women,” Souza, who is a member of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference’s Justice and Peace Commission, told Crux Now.

Souza said those responsible for a Marian shrine should be more attentive to issues related to the plight of women in society.

“If the author of artworks installed in a church is accused of violence against women, that sends the message that the religious institution itself is not paying attention to women’s cries,” he said.

The debate over the relationship between an artist and his or her work is a controversial one, said Father João Ferreira Jr., executive secretary of the Lux Mundi Center, a Church office that assists dioceses in establishing commissions for the protection of children, teenagers and vulnerable people in Brazil.

“Some people argue that there is a radical separation between an artist’s work and his or her personal life. Others argue that it is not possible to separate those spheres,” Ferreira told Crux Now.

In Rupnik’s case, however, victims have accused him of abusing them during the creative process and even of portraying them in his mosaics.

“That element strongly connects the works with the abuse,” Ferreira said, a fact that makes is “very difficult to try to separate Rupnik’s crimes from his creations.”

The Church is among the most trusted institutions in Brazil, according to recent studies, and therefore has an enormous responsibility in society, he said.

“It’s a paradox that the largest Marian shrine in the country is proud of displaying murals that are connected to predatory practices,” Ferreira added.

Ferreira also noted how in Brazil, clerical abuse does not have the same power to mobilize public opinion as it does in European countries.

The priest said there are several cases that could potentially become national scandals, but the symbolic power of the Church is too great and Brazilian society remains deeply religious.

“That’s why Rupnik’s case has not been widely discussed among Brazilians and the installation of his mosaics in Aparecida hasn’t generated a national controversy,” he said.

Kathia Araujo, a devotee of Our Lady of Aparecida who lives in Rio de Janeiro, told Crux Now she learned about Rupnik’s alleged crimes during a Mass but had not heard about them anywhere else.

“The crimes are shocking and very sad. They haven’t been discussed enough in Brazil. I think we should have produced more news stories about them,” Araujo said.

A member of the Family of Devotees since 2016 – the shrine’s permanent donation campaign and the main source of funding for the work on the Basilica – Araujo said she was happy to have contributed to the mosaics.

“It’s fantastic to see such a work, although I loved the exposed bricks as well,” she said adding that the work should not be analyzed in relation to Rupnik’s crimes.

Bernardo Bastos Guimarães, a 64-year-old journalist who also lives in Rio, has staunchly defended the installation of the mosaics in online debates.

“It doesn’t matter whether the founder of Centro Aletti made mistakes – stole, raped, killed – or is a saint. He is not the one on the façade. The façade is the work of artists. Multiple artists,” he told Crux Now.

That should be emphasized rather than a single stain associated with such a magnificent work, he said, adding that the founder of Centro Aletti, who commissioned the art, made mistakes like all human beings do.

“The Church is not a ‘mausoleum.’ Centro Aletti, which produced the pieces, does not belong to the abuser; it was merely founded by him, just as many other priests, bishops, cardinals and popes founded institutions while being sinners,” he said.

Guimarães has been a member of the Family of Devotees since 2017 and feels the Redemptorist priests do wonderful work in welcoming visitors to Aparecida.

“Claudio Pastro’s murals inside the church, as well as the new exterior ones by Centro Aletti, are merely complementary elements. They neither increase nor diminish anyone’s expression of faith,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rupnik’s already years-long trial remains underway and his victims have grown impatient.

Earlier this year, in a letter to the now- Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith Prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, an attorney for some of Rupnik’s accusers decried the slow pace and near-total opacity of the disgraced former celebrity priest’s trial under Church law in the Vatican.

The letter was a withering critique of the Church’s efforts to provide justice in the case, and prompted a rare official statement from the Vatican, which denied then-circulating rumors Rupnik had been acquitted.

Last week, the same attorney – Laura Sgrò – released an open letter to Pope Leo XIV saying the the “prolonged silence” her clients have experienced is “a further and ongoing form of violence.”

In the broader global Church, the Rupnik Affair remains a microcosm of everything still wrong with the Church’s institutional approach to abuse and coverup, but public sensibility in Brazil is calibrated very differently.

Why controversy skipped the Rupnik unveiling in Brazil

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