A priest has been accused of initiating a “holy” threesome with two nuns to replicate the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Marko Ivan Rupnik, 68, is thought to have invited two nuns to join him in the act and allegedly used “psycho-spiritual” methods of control to get his victims to have sex with him and watch porn.
Rupnik was a spiritual director of a Slovenian convent at the time of the alleged incidents.
The former nun who accused him, now 58, said she complained about the infractions at the time, but claimed her concerns were ignored for years.
The former nun told Italian investigative newspaper Domani on Sunday: “Father Marko started slowly and sweetly getting inside my psychological and spiritual world, exploiting my uncertainties and fragility and using my relationship with God to push me into sexual experiences with him.”
“It was truly an abuse of conscience,” she added.
The ex-nun said Rupnik had groomed her and taken her virginity before keeping her silent using bullying tactics from 1987 to 1994, when she was a sister at the convent.
She claimed Rupnik asked her and another nun to have sex with him as a way to recreate the three-way relationship between God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.
She doesn’t think she’s alone in suffering abuse at the hands of the clergyman. She thinks he may have abused up to 20 women.
“He should have been stopped 30 years ago,” the nun said.
In response to the unnamed nun’s claims, the Jesuit order has called for other victims to come forward and said: “You will be listened to with understanding and with empathy.”
This latest allegations is just the latest in a stream of accusations against Rupnik, spanning decades.
Rupnik, a well-known artist in the Church, was accused of sexual misconduct in Slovenia in the 1990s, but these claims only came to light earlier this month.
Speaking on the accusations, the priest’s order said the Vatican had investigated Rupnik, but had ruled that the statute of limitations applied, meaning that too much time had passed from the date of the alleged offence for legal proceedings to begin, and that Rupnik wouldn’t be punished.
Days after the investigation took place, in May 2020, Rupnik was reportedly excommunicated – meaning he was excluded from participating in services of the Church – for committing a serious sin in the Church: using a confessional to absolve a woman he had had sexual relations with.
The excommunication was lifted just a month later after Rupnik repented.
On Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022, Rupnik’s boss, Reverend Johan Verschueren, issued an appeal for further information or claims against Rupnik and said he wanted to clarify some questions thrown up by the new allegations.
“My main concern in all of this is for those who have suffered, and I invite anyone who wishes to make a new complaint or who wants to discuss complaints already made to contact me,” he said.