On the fifth anniversary of the summit on child abuse, wanted by Pope Francis, two former nuns from the Slovenian religious order linked to Father Marko Rupnik (the former Jesuit accused of abuse by several nuns), accompanied by their lawyer and an expert on crisis of clergy abuse, will speak publicly for the first time about the abuse they suffered and the effort made to put an end to the violence. The press conference is scheduled for Wednesday 21 February at the Italian National Press Federation.
Both women, members of the Loyola Community, reported Rupnik to Jesuit officials in the early 1990s for “brutal psychological, sexual, spiritual and power abuse” but both women’s complaints were “repeatedly rejected.” The two former nuns belonged to the recently disbanded women’s religious group in Slovenia and Rome, co-founded by Rupnik, in which at least 20 young women were abused by the former Jesuit. During the meeting with the press it will be asked that the Church establishes a dedicated fund for religious women who suffer abuse at the hands of the clergy.
The drama experienced by the abused nuns “deserves careful reflection and an adequate prompt response from ecclesiastical institutions”, we read in the presentation. The promoters claim that “this is a McCarrick-level cover-up.”
In addition to the two former nuns, the conference will also be attended by their lawyer Laura Sgrò and an expert on the clergy abuse crisis Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, the United States-based monitoring and research group that documented the global abuse crisis in the Catholic Church since 2003.