Women Demand Transparency from Pope Leo on Rupnik Trial

Five women who accuse Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik of abuse have written directly to Pope Leo XIV, saying that they learned of his canonical trial through the media and that repeated approaches to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith have gone unanswered. In July, Nuntiatoria asked how Rome could speak of listening to victims while leaving these women outside the proceedings. Their open letter now puts that question directly before the Pope.

On 31 July, Nuntiatoria ended its examination of the extraordinary opacity surrounding the canonical proceedings against Fr Marko Ivan Rupnik with a simple conclusion: ✠Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández did not need to open the courtroom to the world, but he did need to answer the women standing outside its door.¹ Fifty-four days later, those women say the door remains closed. Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovač, Sr Samuelle, Vida Bernard and a fifth woman writing under the name Pia have now addressed Pope Leo XIV directly. Their first open letter to the Pope, released on 23 September by their lawyer Laura Sgrò, is not principally an argument about Rupnik’s guilt. It is an indictment of what they describe as the prolonged silence surrounding the very process which is supposed to establish the truth.²

The distinction matters. Rupnik is entitled to the presumption of innocence concerning allegations which have not been judicially established. A canonical penal trial cannot be conducted by opinion poll, newspaper campaign or public indignation. Evidence must be examined, the accused must be able to defend himself, judges must be free from external pressure and an eventual judgment must rest upon law rather than reputation. The five women are not asking Pope Leo to abolish those safeguards. On the contrary, they explicitly ask for the things which make a judicial proceeding credible: adversarial fairness, clarity, transparency, reasonable speed, impartiality and judicial independence. They ask for these precisely so that the eventual judgment — “whatever it may be” — should remain free from suspicion.² That is not a demand for a predetermined conviction; it is a demand that the process be recognisably just.

Their procedural position requires precision. The women do not automatically become parties to the penal prosecution merely because they accuse Rupnik of having injured them. In a judicial penal process the criminal action is pursued by the promoter of justice, while Rupnik is the accused. A complainant may supply evidence and may be summoned as a witness without thereby acquiring the procedural rights of either prosecution or defence. Canon 1729 §1 nevertheless permits a person claiming injury from the alleged delict to bring, within the penal trial, a contentious action for reparation of damages; canon 1596 supplies the wider procedural basis for intervention by a person demonstrating a legitimate interest. Such participation is not automatic and must be sought during the first instance.⁹ ¹⁰

That is the precise point at issue. Sgrò says that applications were made for her five clients to be admitted as parti lese — injured parties — but that no determination has been communicated to them.¹ She also says they have not been summoned to testify before the tribunal. Their complaint is therefore not that canon law automatically made them co-prosecutors, because it did not. It is that they invoked a recognised canonical mechanism for formal participation and, according to their lawyer, Rome has not told them whether that request has been granted or refused. As far as the public record presently establishes, they remain complainants and alleged injured persons whose formal status within the trial has not been disclosed.

That uncertainty sharpens the concern raised by Nuntiatoria in July. The scandal is no longer confined to the allegations against one priest. It concerns whether the Church can persuade those who report grave abuse that her judicial institutions will hear them, communicate with them and explain what place, if any, they have within the process. The women say that they learned through the media that proceedings against Rupnik had begun. Their lawyer says she has repeatedly sought clarification from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and has received no substantive answer.² The issue, therefore, is not whether complainants should control a prosecution, but whether people who have formally sought recognition within the proceedings should be told what has happened to their applications.

That is not the same thing as saying that the Vatican has said nothing. Rome has spoken publicly. In October 2025 the Dicastery announced that five judges had been appointed, deliberately selecting women and clerics holding no office in the DDF or elsewhere in the Roman Curia in order to strengthen the tribunal’s autonomy and independence.³ Pope Leo himself confirmed on 4 November 2025 that the trial had recently begun and insisted both upon the presumption of innocence and upon the hope that the process would bring “clarity and justice” to everyone concerned.⁴ Then, on 22 July this year, Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni intervened to reject reports that the tribunal had already reached a decision. He stated that rumours of a judicial determination were “absolutely unfounded”, that the assessment remained under way and that the judges were examining documentation from dioceses, the Jesuits, interested persons and other sources. He added that information about the tribunal’s continuing activity could not be disclosed while proceedings were under way.⁵

There is, however, a legitimate distinction between judicial confidentiality and institutional silence towards complainants who have made procedural applications. The first may protect justice; the second can corrode confidence in it. No responsible observer should expect the DDF to publish witness statements, evidence, judicial deliberations or provisional conclusions while proceedings remain active, nor does the public possess a right to turn a canonical penal trial into ecclesiastical theatre. But confidentiality about the substance of the case does not, by itself, explain why applicants should remain unaware whether their own procedural request has been accepted, rejected or remains awaiting determination.

That was precisely the problem identified in July in Rupnik’s “Phantom” Trial and the Women Left Outside It. Sgrò said then that her clients had not been summoned, that their applications as injured parties had gone unanswered and that her efforts to communicate with those responsible for the proceedings had led nowhere.¹ The new letter suggests that the underlying problem has not been resolved. The point need not be exaggerated: the women do not possess unlimited rights over the penal case. But if they have invoked the mechanism canon law provides to seek formal participation, a failure even to communicate the fate of that request raises an obvious question about the administration of the process.

The women now draw from their experience the conclusion which every ecclesiastical safeguarding authority ought to fear. They argue that the message being communicated is that reporting abuse to ecclesiastical authority is useless because nothing will happen, nobody will be held accountable and victims will never see justice.² Their conclusion is their own and should be reported as such, but the institutional danger represented by that perception is obvious. Safeguarding depends upon reporting, reporting depends upon confidence, and confidence depends not upon promising complainants the verdict they desire but upon persuading them that their allegations will be taken seriously, their evidence considered and their communications acknowledged.

The history makes the situation more serious still. The present proceedings exist because the Holy See itself admitted in October 2023 that there had been “serious problems” in the earlier handling of the Rupnik affair and a “lack of outreach to victims”. After the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors raised its concerns with Pope Francis, Francis instructed the DDF to review the case and waived prescription so that a canonical process could proceed. The Vatican statement said explicitly that the Church must learn to listen “attentively and compassionately” to those who suffer.⁶ Those words now return with uncomfortable force, because the process created partly in response to Rome’s acknowledged failure of outreach is now itself being accused by five women of failing to communicate with them.

That does not prove bias in the tribunal, nor does it prove that evidence is being suppressed, that Rupnik is being protected or that the judges ought to return any particular verdict. Neither does the absence of a public answer establish that the tribunal has failed to consider the women’s applications. The public simply does not know. If the applications have been determined, the applicants should know the result; if they have not, that too can be communicated without compromising the merits of the case.

The five women have chosen their moment carefully. Pope Leo leaves for France on 25 September, where at Lourdes he is due to meet survivors of clerical abuse. When he arrives at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, Rupnik’s mosaics will no longer confront pilgrims across its façade. They have now been covered as a long-term measure following the decision of ✠Jean-Marc Micas, Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes.⁷ The women expressly praise that decision and call it a powerful and courageous gesture.

That makes their appeal considerably harder to dismiss as hostility towards the Church. They recognise an ecclesiastical action which they believe has taken seriously the wounds associated with the Rupnik affair, and they are effectively asking why the pastoral sensitivity visible at Lourdes has not, in their experience, been matched by comparable clarity from the judicial machinery in Rome. Nuntiatoria addressed the first half of that question last month in Lourdes Draws the Veil: Rupnik, Scandal and the Supreme Law of Souls. We argued then that concealing the mosaics was not a canonical verdict upon their creator but a pastoral judgment about the purpose of a sanctuary. Lourdes exists for wounded souls, and sacred art has no absolute claim to prominence when its presence itself becomes an obstacle to those whom the sanctuary exists to receive.⁸ We concluded with the words: “The mosaics will be veiled. The truth must not be.” The five women have now supplied the unavoidable sequel.

Covering the mosaics cannot become a substitute for establishing the truth about the allegations, nor can a judicial process become so opaque to those directly concerned that they do not know what relation they bear to it. Institutional transparency is not the same thing as indiscriminate disclosure. The Church does not vindicate alleged victims by abandoning law, and she does not vindicate law by withholding every intelligible sign that justice is being done. Due process protects the accused, while orderly canonical procedure also requires that legitimate applications made within the process be handled and communicated according to law.

Pope Leo’s own words make the matter particularly acute. When discussing Rupnik last November, he acknowledged that asking victims for patience is difficult while insisting that the rights of everyone involved must be respected. That was correct. Judicial proceedings do take time, and serious allegations spanning many years cannot responsibly be resolved according to the timetable of social media. Patience, however, need not mean ignorance of one’s own position in the process. Confidentiality can be preserved while correspondence is acknowledged, the independence of judges can be protected while procedural status is explained, and the presumption of innocence can be safeguarded without treating complainants as though their legitimate interest ended when their evidence was first submitted.

The women themselves make a point which ought to command attention from all sides of the controversy: a process conducted in obscurity provides no guarantee either to the accused or to those alleging injury.² If Rupnik is acquitted, the credibility of that acquittal will depend partly upon confidence that the relevant evidence was fully heard and properly tested. If he is convicted, the credibility of the conviction will likewise depend upon confidence that his defence was respected and that independent judges reached their decision according to law. Procedural clarity therefore protects Rupnik as well as those who accuse him.

This is why the women’s demand that the eventual judgment should remain free of any “shadow of doubt” ought not to be understood as an attack upon judicial independence. Properly understood, it is an argument for it. The Church has learned through bitter experience that justice is damaged not only when wrongdoing is concealed but when legitimate procedures are so obscure that those directly affected cannot understand whether obvious questions have even been considered. The Rupnik affair is especially vulnerable to that suspicion because of its history: his extraordinary ecclesiastical prestige, the earlier canonical findings and restrictions, his dismissal from the Society of Jesus, the previous operation of prescription, the intervention of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and Francis’s eventual decision to waive prescription after Rome itself acknowledged serious deficiencies in the earlier handling of the case.⁶

The present tribunal was supposed to mark a new beginning, and its composition was deliberately arranged to demonstrate independence.³ That was prudent, but judicial independence cannot be demonstrated solely by announcing who the judges do not work for. Confidence must also arise from the discernible regularity of the procedure they administer. Precision about the women’s status strengthens rather than weakens their complaint. Canon law requires them to seek admission through the proper mechanism; they say they have done so. Their expectation is correspondingly modest: that the application be received, determined according to law and its outcome communicated.

There is a deeper ecclesiological question beneath all of this. The Church does not administer justice merely because modern institutions are expected to maintain safeguarding policies. Justice belongs to her own moral constitution. The authority to judge is not bureaucratic housekeeping. Ecclesiastical power exists for the good of souls and remains subject to truth, justice and charity. A tribunal therefore cannot be judged only by whether it eventually produces a technically valid sentence. How justice is administered matters, how the accused is protected matters, how those alleging injury are treated matters, whether the canonical rights available to each are respected matters, and whether truth can be seen to have been sought without favour matters profoundly.

The women end their appeal by telling Leo XIV that they need truth and that the Church needs it just as much.² On that point there should be little disagreement. The Church does not need a predetermined verdict in the Rupnik case; she needs a credible one. She does not need trial by newspaper; she needs a tribunal whose independence and thoroughness can withstand scrutiny after its work is complete. She does not need witness statements, private testimony or judicial deliberations published in real time, but she does need a process in which those who have formally sought recognition as injured parties are told whether that recognition has been granted. Pope Leo does not need to decide Rupnik’s guilt from the Apostolic Palace, but he does need to ensure that the Church which speaks so frequently of listening can explain to five women who say they have invoked its own canonical procedures what place, if any, they occupy within them.

Lourdes has already supplied the image. The mosaics are covered, but the women say they remain outside the door. They say they have used the canonical route available to injured parties and still do not know whether Rome has admitted them. This time they have taken that unanswered question to the Pope. If the Church wishes the eventual judgment in the Rupnik case to command confidence, the answer cannot simply be more silence.