Vatican announces formal nomination of judges in Father Rupnik trial

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Three months after Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández said the Vatican had identified the judges who would form the tribunal in the canonical trial against Slovenian Father Marko Rupnik on charges of spiritual and sexual abuse, the judges were formally nominated.

The Vatican published a communique Oct. 13 from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Fernández, saying the five judges were nominated Oct. 9.

"The panel of judges is composed of women and clerics who are not members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and who hold no office within any of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia," the note said.

"This has been done in order to better ensure, as in every judicial proceeding, the autonomy and independence of the aforesaid tribunal," it said. The communique did not say when the trial would begin or if it already had begun.

Father Rupnik is an artist and former Jesuit accused of sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing more than 20 women -- many of them members of a religious community he co-founded -- over a span of four decades.

The doctrinal office had dismissed the case against Father Rupnik in 2021 because the statute of limitations had expired on the allegations made by nine women. In October 2023, Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations, authorizing a formal investigation amid public outcry and allegations of institutional cover-up.

After the original dismissal of the case, more women and one man came forward with allegations, and Father Rupnik was dismissed from the Jesuits for disobedience. He subsequently found a bishop in his native Slovenia who accepted him as a diocesan priest.

Cardinal Fernández had told reporters in early July that the judges had been identified but that some procedures, including the notification of the victims, needed completion before the trial could begin.