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Leo XIV, the Shrine of Lourdes, and Rupnik’s mosaics: a papal visit as new evidence emerges against the former Jesuit – ZENIT
(ZENIT News / Lourdes, 08.07.2026).- When Pope Leo XIV arrives at Lourdes on September 27, he will enter a sanctuary built around healing. Yet part of the visual landscape surrounding that message will be hidden.
The mosaics of former Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, once among the most recognizable examples of contemporary Catholic sacred art, are expected to remain covered in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary during the Pope’s visit. The decision, taken by the Diocese of Tarbes and Lourdes, is more than an architectural adjustment. It reflects an unresolved problem confronting the Catholic Church: what should be done with religious art created by an artist facing extensive allegations of sexual, psychological, spiritual and physical abuse?
For Bishop Jean-Marc Micas, the answer begins not with the fate of the mosaics, but with the people who may encounter them.
“Lourdes is Lourdes because of the Immaculate Conception,” Micas said in an interview in July. He noted that the sanctuary has become particularly significant for survivors of sexual abuse, some of whom come there seeking consolation and healing. After listening to accounts from alleged victims, he concluded that the presence of Rupnik’s work could itself become an obstacle to that experience.
“My mission is to allow anyone to enter the sanctuary and the grotto,” he said, so that they can find consolation after what they have experienced.
That logic helps explain why Lourdes has chosen concealment rather than immediate removal. The mosaics are not being erased from the history of the basilica. For the moment, they are being placed out of sight.
The decision is especially significant because Rupnik’s work is not confined to one church. His mosaics became extraordinarily influential in Catholic visual culture during the first decades of the 21st century. They can be found in major churches and shrines in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United States, as well as in prominent Vatican settings. Their imagery appeared not only on walls but also through official Catholic publications, logos and campaigns, helping make Rupnik’s artistic language unusually familiar to Catholics around the world.
That prominence makes the present controversy difficult to resolve through a simple act of removal.
At Lourdes, the process has already been gradual. In 2024, the mosaics ceased to be illuminated during nighttime processions. In March 2025, panels were placed over the mosaics on the side doors of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, followed shortly afterward by the central doors. The bishop described the measure as symbolic rather than a final decision concerning the entire collection. During the Pope’s visit, the intention is to cover the mosaics more extensively.
The timing matters. The Pope is expected to meet survivors of abuse during the pilgrimage. In such circumstances, the sanctuary authorities have judged that preserving an uninterrupted environment of prayer and welcome takes precedence over displaying works whose creator has become the subject of allegations that remain deeply distressing to survivors.
Yet Lourdes also exposes the unresolved institutional question: how long can a temporary solution remain temporary?
Twenty-two letters from 2000
The issue has acquired a new dimension with the emergence of 22 previously unpublished letters written in 2000 by women belonging to the Community of Loyola in Slovenia.
According to the material cited by OSV News, the women wrote the letters at the request of their superior, Sister Ivanka Hosta, and addressed them to Rupnik, who had served as their spiritual director. The accounts reportedly describe alleged spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse, as well as manipulation, pressure and the misuse of authority and religious language.
The number is striking. Of roughly 40 women in the community who were asked to write letters connected with the Jubilee year, 22 reportedly described experiences of abuse.
Nine of those women later gave testimony during a preliminary investigation conducted in 2021. The Jesuits said that investigation concluded in January 2022 with a finding that the allegations were credible. Fabrizia Raguso, a former member of the community who has publicly discussed the letters, says the women were instructed to describe their relationship with Rupnik and ultimately to forgive him.
If accurate, the chronology raises difficult questions because the letters predate by many years the moment when Rupnik became internationally celebrated as a Catholic artist.
The first complaints reportedly reached Jesuit superiors and the then Archbishop of Ljubljana in the early 1990s. Rupnik left the Community of Loyola in 1993 and moved to Rome, where he eventually established the Aletti Center. By 2000, he was already responsible for major artistic projects, including the mosaic program in the Vatican’s Redemptoris Mater Chapel.
His career subsequently expanded across the Catholic world, reaching such prominent sites as the shrine of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, Lourdes, Fatima, the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid and the National Shrine of Saint John Paul II in Washington.
The contrast is difficult to ignore: allegations that had circulated within religious circles for years existed alongside the construction of an international reputation that eventually made Rupnik one of the most influential sacred artists of his generation.
A case still awaiting judgment
The legal and canonical history is equally complicated.
In 2019, Rupnik was briefly excommunicated after being found guilty of the canonical offense involving sacramental absolution of a person with whom he had engaged in sexual relations. The sanction was subsequently lifted. In 2020, despite that episode, he preached the Roman Curia’s Lenten retreat.
Further allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse emerged publicly in 2022. The Jesuits later expelled Rupnik in 2023 after he refused restrictions imposed in connection with the accusations. The supplied material states that the expulsion was formally linked to his refusal to obey his religious superiors rather than constituting a canonical finding that he was guilty of the broader allegations.
The Vatican’s handling of the case has since moved through several stages. In 2022, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith initially considered the alleged offenses time-barred. Pope Francis later lifted the limitation period, allowing the case to proceed. A panel of judges was eventually appointed, and the canonical criminal proceedings remain ongoing.
That point is crucial because inaccurate reports recently claimed that Rupnik had been acquitted. The Holy See explicitly rejected those reports, stating that the case remains under examination. The Vatican has also said that the judicial process is not subject to the statute of limitations for the offenses under consideration.
The secrecy inherent in canonical judicial proceedings, however, has produced another source of frustration. The Vatican has not publicly disclosed the full evidentiary record, while lawyers representing alleged victims have complained that their clients have received little information about the progress of the case.
The result is an uncomfortable paradox: the Church is conducting a judicial process while many of those most affected by it experience the process as opaque.
What happens to the art?
Lourdes therefore finds itself confronting a question for which the Church has yet to establish a universal answer.
There is an obvious difference between determining a person’s canonical guilt and deciding whether a particular work of art should remain prominently displayed in a place of prayer. The first requires evidence, due process and a judgment. The second involves pastoral prudence, the experience of worshippers and the meaning that a work acquires once its creator’s alleged conduct becomes known.
That distinction may explain why Catholic institutions have responded differently. Some Rupnik works have been covered or removed, while others remain visible. There is no single policy governing the treatment of his art across the Church.
At Lourdes, Bishop Micas has effectively chosen to place pastoral accessibility ahead of artistic continuity, at least for now. The decision does not pronounce a final judgment on the mosaics themselves. It says something narrower but important: a shrine devoted to healing should not knowingly create an additional barrier for people who come there carrying the wounds of abuse.
That may prove to be the most consequential aspect of the controversy.
The debate over Rupnik’s mosaics is often framed as a choice between preserving art and removing it. But Lourdes suggests a third question is more urgent: what should a Catholic sanctuary look like when the person who created part of its visual identity has become inseparable, for many visitors, from allegations of grave abuse?
For the moment, Lourdes has answered by covering the images.
The deeper question remains uncovered.
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