While a Catholic shrine in Lourdes, France, announced on Monday it is covering mosaics by alleged abuser Father Marko Rupnik on the doors to one of its basilicas, another of the world’s most popular sites of Marian devotion said it is not considering removing its own Rupnik artwork.
A spokesperson for the Fátima shrine in Portugal told the Portuguese news outlet 7Margens via email this week that the international shrine is not taking down the mosaic installation but has stopped using its image in any distributed materials.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima, which receives over 6 million visitors a year, is located on the site of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to three shepherd children in 1917.
The back wall of the shrine’s largest and most modern worship space, the Basilica of the Holy Trinity, is covered in an enormous, floor-to-ceiling work by Rupnik and several of his artist collaborators.
The approximately 33-by-164-foot gold mosaic was installed in 2007 and features the paschal lamb at the center flanked by saints and angels.
“We are not considering removing it. However, since we became aware of the accusations against Father [Marko Ivan] Rupnik, we have suspended the use of the image, the entire work, and its details in our dissemination of materials,” the shrine’s communications department told 7Margens.
Echoing a similar statement made to OSV News in July 2024, the shrine said it “strongly repudiates the acts committed by Father [Marko Ivan] Rupnik,” and it “has already expressed its solidarity with the victims.”
Rupnik, a native of Slovenia, was expelled from the Jesuits in June 2023 for disobedience following the public revelation that he was accused of the sexual and psychological abuse of dozens of women under his spiritual care in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The priest is currently under canonical investigation by the Vatican.
The abuse accusations sparked an enormous debate about whether to remove the hundreds of religious artworks created by Rupnik and his collaborators through his Rome-based art and theology center, the Centro Aletti.
At least 230 religious sites around the world feature Rupnik’s distinctive mosaics, from some of the biggest international shrines to smaller chapels and churches, including the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Vatican.
Victims of sexual abuse and organizations that support them have called for the works to be removed or covered, especially since some of the accusations against Rupnik allege he committed abuse in the context of the creation of his art.
In July 2024, the bishop who oversees the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France said he had received opposition to the idea of removing the Rupnik mosaics on the facade of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary but that, as a first step, they would no longer be lit up at night.
On March 31, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes announced a further step — the covering of the main entrances to the basilica, which also feature mosaics by Rupnik.
In the United States, the Knights of Columbus announced July 10, 2024, that it would cover the Rupnik mosaics located in the two chapels of the National Shrine of St. John Paul II in Washington, D.C., and in the chapel in the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut.
This article was originally published on Catholic News Agency.
