Photo Josh Applegate / Unsplash
The new documentary Nuns vs. the Vatican interviews the former nuns whose lives were devastated by the abuse of Father Marko Rupnik, a disgraced former Jesuit.
The main subject of the film is Gloria, a former nun from the Loyola community of Slovenia who was groomed and abused by Fr. Rupnik when she entered the order, according to the website Life for Film. Fr. Rupnik, an artist, claimed that he needed her as a model. He spiritually abused her by saying that the faith required her to “reconnect with the body.”
Live for Film tells what the women whom Fr. Rupnik abused endured.
“Their letters get burned, their characters maligned, their mental health suffers as Rupnik continues to make his art and climb the ranks of the Catholic Church,” Live for Film states.
In an article on the website Tiff, film director Thom Powers shared more details about the women interviewed in the film.
“We meet inspiring individuals who are fighting to hold the church accountable,” Powers stated. “They include Lucetta Scaraffia, who resigned from the Vatican’s women’s magazine over pushback to her coverage of nun abuse; Italian journalist Federica Tourn, who pieces together testimonies; and American activist Barbara Dorris, who crusades for victims. With a men-centred hierarchy in the church, women scarcely get a voice in setting policy. Dorris laments that the church has consistently framed abuse as a homosexual issue in a way that women victims are made to disappear. This stirring documentary throws a bright light on dark secrets.”
Fr. Rupnik’s art controversially remains at Catholic shrines throughout the world, and had previously featured on the Vatican website despite the protests of former victims. Shortly after Pope Leo XIV became pope, the art was removed from the Vatican website, as CatholicVote previously reported.
