MANCHESTER (NH)
Crisis Magazine [Manchester NH]
June 26, 2024
By Kristen H. Ciaccia
This is the hour when the bishops of the United States must repent, and Fr. Rupnik’s mosaics supply the means. Each bishop should spend his vacation removing Rupnik’s mosaics.
When I was seven, my parents brought home a painting and hung it above the fireplace. They summoned my brother and me into the living room, and we looked at the painting up close. In front of us was a collection of squares in muted and faint purples, pinks, blues, and grays. My parents then had us view the painting from a distance, dimming the lights. A man appeared on the canvas. We were enchanted by this transformation. My parents didn’t tell us the name of the painting or the artist, and it was always known as “the cool painting” in our home.
Last summer, I found myself again contemplating that cool piece of art, this time as a middle-aged woman. I reflected and asked myself: Do I need to stop looking at others so closely that they become a collection of faults? Should I instead step back and take a broader view in order to appreciate humanity? I don’t know what the artist was trying to convey with his art, but I was able to be moved and learn by just contemplating this piece because artwork, detached from the artist, can teach us.
I don’t remember ever having seen a Rupnik mosaic in person, but these mosaics are found on the facades and interior walls of some significant churches across the Catholic world, including the Shrine of John Paul II in Washington, D.C. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when Fr. Marko Rupnik was deemed an artistic genius, organizing colors and textures with his own unique hands into iconic and enchanting depictions of saints, biblical scenes, and Our Lord. As there are calls now to remove his art, some are likening him to Michelangelo or Caravaggio, a flawed man who sinned but created artwork that, when encountered, elevates the human soul.
But Fr. Rupnik is not just a sinner like the rest of us. He is a predator who used his priesthood and elevated position as a prolific and celebrated artist to manipulate vulnerable women psychologically and spiritually and sexually abuse them. And like all victims of clerical sexual abuse, these women became victims solely because they responded to God’s call. Had they had no faith, then Fr. Rupnik would never have had access to abuse these women. What a cruel irony it is that responding to the desire in every human heart—to know, love, and serve God—is the very reason they became victims of abuse.
Fr. Rupnik was enabled and has escaped any meaningful consequences for his abuse because of his priesthood, his status, and his celebrated artwork. Now we grapple with what to do with his art and, in particular, his mosaics. It’s almost as if this dilemma is a material manifestation of the bigger problem in the American Church today.
Clergy who are relevant with the youth and get into the crowd and connect, savvy catechetical campaigns, and large-scale gatherings with Catholic celebrity speakers make the Faith feel new and exciting. Rigorous seminarian screening and intense seminarian spiritual direction seem prudent and wise. The countless background checks, victim assistance coordinators, and video statements from your bishop appear serious and caring. But like Rupnik’s mosaics, these actions and novelties are seemingly faith-filled and inspired but directed by men who enabled and covered up abuse—some of whom are even abusers themselves.
The Dallas Charter, which exempted bishops and mandated training for laity, hung faithful priests out to dry. Screening was supposed to be more vigilant, zero tolerance was proclaimed, and yet predators still managed to remain in the priesthood—and the credibly-accused list keeps growing. Vos Estis Lux Mundi has only served as a way to hear a little Latin in the Church today every time it’s mentioned. Each proposal adopted has felt like an action without faith, belief, or any seriousness behind it. But maybe it’s because each action lacks the one thing that we are all called to: repentance.
It all needs to be gutted and removed.
I instinctively recoil at the idea of destroying art, no matter how offensive. History has taught us to vigilantly fight against iconoclasm. A lesson dwells in a painting, mosaic, or novel, and to destroy the piece of art is to destroy the lesson. Yet, in the case of Fr. Rupnik’s art, I think the destruction of his art is perhaps where the lesson lies.
This is the hour and moment when the bishops of the United States must repent, and Fr. Rupnik’s mosaics supply the means. Each bishop should spend his vacation removing Rupnik’s mosaics from the walls of the Shrine of John Paul II in Washington, D.C. Imagine a successor of the apostles with just a hammer and a chisel spending a twelve-hour day contemplating and actively repenting for the damage inflicted on vulnerable human beings caused by the bishops’ cowardice and indifference.
Even the handful of bishops who truly knew nothing about McCarrick, Bransfield, and countless other predators can be chiselers because, as Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles, reminded his brother bishops in 2018, “We must have devotion to each other as members of the USCCB and the College of Bishops.” So, those handful of bishops who are “good guys” could still partake in this act of penance the same way that I have to participate in multiple “Virtus” and “Protecting God’s Children” programs even though the great majority of the laity were never part of this abuse problem.
Once the tiles are all off the walls, then the bishops can spackle and sand and have the walls clean, bare, pristine, and ready for something new—renewal. This public and physical act of repentance can teach all men of goodwill that who and what you place in a privileged position in the Church matters, and those souls in the care of those in authority matter too.
It’s time to live the lesson: if you see red flags, don’t let him serve in ministry; and if a piece of art doesn’t portray a woman as feminine and beautiful and the eyes are soulless, don’t place the image on a wall in the church.