VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship has informed LifeSite that the disgraced ex-Jesuit alleged serial abuser Father Marko Ivan Rupnik is not a consultor for the office, despite being listed as such in the Vatican’s official yearbook.
When questioned by this reporter on April 18, an official for the Congregation (now Dicastery) for Divine Worship (CDW) rejected the notion that Rupnik is still a consultor for the CDW.
A furor had broken out in recent days when the Vatican’s recently published 2024 Pontifical Yearbook still listed the alleged serial abuser as a consultor to the liturgy office. Included on page 1346, Rupnik was also described as a Jesuit – even though he was expelled from the Society of Jesus in July 2023 in disgrace, with the official reason given being his “refusal to observe the vow of obedience.”
Outrage was expressed by many Catholics that Rupnik should still be advising the Vatican on liturgy, given the following: his having been excommunicated for absolving a sexual accomplice in Confession; the well documented allegations of serial abuse whose credibility is deemed “very high” by his former superiors; and his being the subject of an investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for said abuse.
The CDW official informed this reporter that Rupnik’s inclusion in the yearbook was out of date, and had been left over from previous editions.
Rupnik had been named consultor for the CDW on January 14, 2017 and was also named consultor for Congregation for Clergy on April 1, 2017. Such appointments to positions in the Roman Curia are usually for a term of five years, meaning that renewals or new appointments would have been due in 2022.
When new members of the CDW were named on June 1, 2022 Rupnik was not among them, nor however would that have been expected since he was appointed in 2017 as a consultor, not a member. But a few days later that month, when new consultors were then appointed, Rupnik was notably absent. The international scandal surrounding Rupnik became public in late 2021.
Further confusing matters is the CDW’s website. As LifeSite has previously reported, on March 28, the site clearly listed Rupnik as a consultor.
READ: Disgraced Fr. Rupnik continues to live at his Rome art center where alleged abuses took place
After the social media furor started, the website was updated April 13 with the priest’s name removed from the site.
A cover up? On March 28, Rupnik was listed on Congregation/Dicastery for Divine Worship website among consultors appointed for 5yr terms in 2022; now he is not.
As known, Vatican 2024 yrbook, published only this week (& already out of date for some things) still lists him in CDW pic.twitter.com/3IGVgkzfPt— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) April 13, 2024
Both the archived March 28 and April 13 versions of the CDW’s site state that the list of consultors is formed based on the confirmation of existing consulters on “(March 29, 2022) and subsequent new appointments (May 17, 2022).”
Extensive searches through the Holy See Press Office’s archives do not list any nominations to the CDW on those dates, or dates around that time.
The current website version of the CDW’s list of consultors now does not give any dates for their appointment to the liturgy office.
Earlier this year the CDW website underwent a thorough overhaul and update. Vatican bureaucracy and administration – particularly administration of the various Curial offices’ websites – is notoriously slow in action and in updating information.
With that in mind, it is perceivable that information from the old CDW website was simply carried over to the new site without proper care being given to ensuring lists were accurate.
Possible evidence for this lack of attention to detail is the fact that in late December 2022, Rupnik was still listed as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, though his five year term would have ended in April that year. He has since been removed from the site and its membership list updated with more recent appointments.
Rupnik was also listed as a consultant at the Congregation for Clergy in 2020 – during his excommunication trial – and for a number of years he published a weekly homily on the congregation’s website. The Congregation for Clergy also issued a new website earlier this year, obliterating any archived Rupnik material.
Confusion and consternation has been amply found in the wake of the Vatican yearbook’s inclusion of Rupnik among the consultors of the CDW. However, the CDW itself has not sought to clarify matters. Emailed questions from journalists on the issue have gone unanswered, with only an in-person visit proving fruitful.
In order to fully outline the events relating to Rupnik since December 2022, along with the nature of continued promotion he has received in that time amid increasing scandal, LifeSiteNews has compiled a timeline which can be downloaded here. A pdf version of the pre-2022 Rupnik timeline can be dowloaded here.