Is the Church really listening to women?
As Church leaders inside the synod consider what it means to really listen to women – in the words of Nonterah, to sit at the feet of women – many outside the synodal halls would suggest they start with the women who say Rupnik raped and manipulated them.
These women also say their complaints of his misconduct went unheeded for years.
And despite more than two decades of Catholic leaders saying they are committed to fighting abuse in the Catholic Church, these women have now found that sharing their stories has had no effect.
Despite their testimonies, Rupnik is free to continue the exercise of his ministry without any restrictions whatsoever.
The question of sexual abuse was raised at the Vatican s press conference Wednesday.
Cardinal Robert Prevost, prefect of the Vatican s Dicastery for Bishops, responded by saying that while the subject came up in the synodal discussions, it was not meant to be the central topic of the synod. And so I m not prepared to say that became the focus of the synod because that was not the synod s purpose.
But no matter how much Church leaders may wish to focus on other subjects, the question of the Church s response to cases like Rupnik s isn t going away.
You might have missed the climax of the “Synod on Synodality” being held in Rome, the culmination of 3 years of preparation. There has been other news. It has been IMHO and speaking as a mere-warm-spot-in-the-pew Catholic, an unmitigated disaster, not least of all for the Church’s image. You can get the gist of the Rupnik story above, which is just the icing on the whole rotten cake. I don’t refer to him as Fr. Rupnik, judging him to have earned that stripping of his title by his deeds and thoughts, whatever his reversal of excommunication would otherwise suggest. I link to EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo and Fr. Gerald Murray for a thorough critique of the whole messy process.