

A week ago, the editors of the National Catholic Register published an editorial titled “It’s Time to Remove Father Rupnik’s Art”. Their strong stance, they said, was “not an expedient surrender to iconoclasm or ‘cancel culture,’ even though the court of public opinion already has judged him guilty of sexually, spiritually and psychologically manipulating and abusing multiple religious sisters under his authority.”
Some CWR contributors, in recent months, have expressed a similar perspective. Michael Heinlein, remarking on his recent pilgrimage to Lourdes, where artwork by Fr. Marko Rupnik is prominently displayed, wrote:
With such artwork at the shrine, how does its important spiritual work not find itself compromised and weakened? How can those coming to Lourdes to seek healing from abuse and grace to carry the cross of its effects find there a place of authenticity and integrity?
CWR contributing editor Christopher Altieri, who has been following the Rupnik affair very closely from the start, wrote last month: “When Church outfits use Rupnik’s art—and the Vatican is hardly alone in continuing to do so—it compounds the hurt.” And, in another recent piece:
Church types all around the world are dithering over what to do with their Rupnik pieces and installations. Not a one of them has been taken down, as far as I can tell. They’re all over everywhere, by the way, adorning shrines and chapels from the Apostolic Palace and more than a hundred other locations on the boot to Lourdes, Fatima, Beirut, Brisbane, the District of Columbia and even in my hometown of Fairfield, Ct.
“Pure iconoclasm” is pure nonsense
Commentary on X/Twitter for and against the removal of Rupnik’s art has been, not surprisingly, a bit heated. A leading proponent of keeping the art intact is Austen Ivereigh, who has written several books about Pope Francis, including at least two biographies. Reacting directly to the afore-mentioned Register editorial, Ivereigh tweeted:
Nonsense! Many disgraced & dubious religious artists have created works that over the centuries have raised minds and hearts to God. This is pure iconoclasm, Puritan not Catholic, and heretical, bc it does not allow for grace to supplement sinful nature.
He is correct to note that the creators of good—even great—art have often been bad and “great” sinners. All of them, I’m confident, were sinners, just as many of them pursued lives of holiness. The relationship between art and artist—and I have some experience in this area, having created and sold many pieces of artwork over the years—is complicated. But some of the complications come not just from the artist, but also from the authentic experience of the viewer.
Consider three hypothetical scenarios. In the first, you inherit a piece of jewelry that was created two centuries ago by a relative who, you’re told, had owned slaves in the Antebellum South. In the second, you are given some custom-made china by a great aunt who, when you were younger, was often critical and cruel to you. In the third, you are given a beautiful portrait of your mother, painted when your mother was a young woman by a family friend—a brilliant artist who, you have just learned, sexually abused your mother and four other women when they were teenagers.
Your response to each of these items will vary, depending on several factors: relationships, knowledge, proximity, and the severity of actions involved and the moral, emotional, and psychological demands involved. But there is no doubt that the third scenario is the most revolting, as the relationships, immediacy, and the egregious evil of the acts involved are impossible to ignore, never mind detaching them from the painting in question.
Hold that thought as we move to the claim that removing Rupnik’s art “is pure iconoclasm, Puritan not Catholic, and heretical…” This is both hyperbolic and sloppy; it is also polemical and unfair. Historically, iconoclasm in the East dates back to the 700s and 800s, when various Byzantine rulers destroyed icons because the veneration of such artistic works was considered idolatrous; a similar conflict emerged during the Protestant Revolution in the sixteenth century, when churches and monasteries were ruthlessly stripped of artwork and statuary.
In both cases, theological truth and doctrinal coherence were front and center: is it proper and good, in light of the Incarnation, for religious images to be used and treated with respect and even veneration? The term “iconoclasm” now resides in the secular realm as well, a description of the wrongful destruction or removal of particular images and objects, because of political beliefs or social stances.
The situation with Rupnik, of course, is not theological or doctrinal. Heresy is, as the Catechism states, “is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith” (par 2089). What truth is being denied, exactly, in the request to remove Rupnik’s artwork? And claiming that those who seek the removal of his artwork from churches and other places are “Puritan not Catholic” makes a judgment of soul and belief that Ivereigh, I’m quite certain, is not qualified to pin on anyone.
Meanwhile, if we take Ivereigh’s claim seriously and follow it to a logical end, we have to conclude that the wholesale and often shocking renovations foisted upon many parishes and cathedrals in the late 1960s and following years were the acts of iconoclasts, neo-Puritans, and heretics. Is Ivereigh willing to say so on the record? After all, few (if any) of the aforementioned changes were based on the actual texts of the Second Vatican Council, which stated that the Church, over the centuries,
has brought into being a treasury of art which must be very carefully preserved. The art of our own days, coming from every race and region, shall also be given free scope in the Church, provided that it adorns the sacred buildings and holy rites with due reverence and honor; thereby it is enabled to contribute its own voice to that wonderful chorus of praise in honor of the Catholic faith sung by great men in times gone by. (SC, 123)
And, furthermore:
All artists who, prompted by their talents, desire to serve God’s glory in holy Church, should ever bear in mind that they are engaged in a kind of sacred imitation of God the Creator, and are concerned with works destined to be used in Catholic worship, to edify the faithful, and to foster their piety and their religious formation. (SC, 127)
So, what of Rupnik’s apparent motives and desires? His “sexual obsession was not extemporaneous,” asserted a former Italian religious sister of the Loyola Community whose accounts of abuse are harrowing, “but deeply connected to his conception of art and his theological thought.” This has been repeated and reinforced by some other twenty religious women. And the superior general of the Society of Jesuits and the Vatican confirmed that, in 2020, Rupnik was excommunicated for a time “for absolving in confession a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship.” (For more about details and recent developments, see Altieri’s CWR pieces.) In other words, we’re not talking about mere speculation or allegations; there are patterns and proofs in play.
Sinful art? Artful sins?
I think that people of good will and mature judgment can agree there is a difference between an artist who struggles privately with lustful thoughts and an artist who intertwines his artist work with sexual sins and who tries to excuse and perpetuate those sins using theological language. Rupnik, said the former sister, “asked me to have threesomes with another sister of the community, because sexuality had to be, in his opinion, free from possession, in the image of the Trinity where, he said, ‘the third person would welcome the relationship between the two.’”
Is that heretical? Even if, strictly speaking, it is not, it is vile and perverse, as any Puritan, Catholic, or otherwise sane person can see.
But, of course, these are not just serious sexual sins. They are grave sins involving power, coercion, and injustice. Consider the poignant cry of the Psalmist and think of the sisters to whom Rupnik was supposed to be a father, a protector, and a source of spiritual nourishment:
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked. (Ps 82:3-4)
And yet, as Altieri and others have documented, Pope Francis and the Vatican have sometimes handled the Rupnik affair as if the former Jesuit is a victim who needs protection from the mindless, mean mobs. There is much talk during this pontificate about helping the poor and weak, but the powerless victims of abuse are often treated with toxic suspicion (the Chilean fiasco comes to mind). The term “rigid” is cast about like a school-yard insult while the ranks close around Rupnik with a palpable cold rigidity. And while the “lived experience” of certain people is touted by priests and prelates in the good graces of the Vatican, the very real horrors endured by abuse victims are buried beneath the strangely untouchable sacredness of Rupnik’s art.
Which brings us to the “art” in question. It is, in my opinion. quite bad. Even dreadful. It lacks much artistic merit; the soulless eyes and lazy renderings that inhabit his various paintings and mosaics raise questions in my mind but never raise my mind and heart to the heavens. These are, overall, mediocre works; their widespread use is puzzling, to put it nicely.
“The work of art,” wrote St. Thomas Aquinas in Contra Gentes, “represents the mind of the maker.” And St. John Paul II, in his letter to artists, remarked: “Through his works, the artist speaks to others and communicates with them.” And what comes through in much of Rupnik’s art, in my opinion, is shallow and vapid and often a bit creepy.
Addressing scandal with subsidiarity
Recently, some churches in the region of Lyon, France, began removing stained glass artwork that had been created by priest and artist Louis Ribes (1920-1994), who had been nicknamed the “Picasso of churches” Why? Because in 2022, he was accused of raping and abusing dozens (perhaps hundreds) of children; the reports of abuse, pornography, and other evils go back to the 1970s. Ribes was, it turns out, a despicable monster (his artwork, however, is far superior to that of Rupnik, in my estimation) and the wounds, needless to say, are deep and raw.
Are those people and churches engaging in “iconoclasm”? Are they actually Puritans pretending to be Catholic? Heretics? To ask the questions is the answer the questions.
The Council stated:
Let bishops carefully remove from the house of God and from other sacred places those works of artists which are repugnant to faith, morals, and Christian piety, and which offend true religious sense either by depraved forms or by lack of artistic worth, mediocrity and pretense.
There you go: removal of sacred artwork is not necessarily iconoclastic at all. Further, the repugnancy of artwork cannot always be sealed off from the actions of the artist. And a painting can possess a real and abiding repugnance—because of knowledge, proximity, and the severity of actions involved—that cannot be justified and should not be ignored. Especially so when that artist has, by all appearances, been protected by the powers that be (that is, Pope Francis) and has not faced his accusers and the many charges that surely will be made. “Only take care,” wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians, “lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor 8:9), but we are not talking here about meat sacrificed to false idols, but violations committed by a real priest.
Besides, in this age of “decentralization” and “synodality,” is it not best that those who own and oversee Rupnik’s art in specific churches and other places be the ones who make the judgment about what should be done? How it can be done?
“Pope Francis,” wrote Altieri a month ago, “did not create the crisis of credibility or the failure of leadership culture that precipitated it, but he has not made either any better. In fact, his conduct of the office entrusted to him has made things very much worse.” The Rupnik affair is a chance, to some degree, for Francis to show that he really is a pope of the people, actually does listen to the people, and truly wants both mercy and justice to shine forth.
How? First, by allowing the facts—ugly and raw as they will be—to be heard; secondly, by simply getting out of the way; third, by holding accountable everyone who has played a role; fourth, by publicly stating that the removal of Rupnik should be a viable option.
After all, this is going to get worse before it gets better. It’s hard to conclude otherwise. And the world is watching. How serious, really, is Francis and the Vatican about addressing abuse and cover-ups of the same? The record, right now, is quite poor. Desperate mud-slinging and childish name-calling by Team Francis will not only fail, it will continue to make matters worse.
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