Lourdes, France, Feb 5, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The bishop of Lourdes says that he has received a “pile of letters” from Catholics all over the world as he considers whether to remove the shrine’s mosaics by alleged abuser Father Marko Rupnik.
Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes told CNA that he hopes to make a decision by this spring. The bishop formed a special commission last year to determine the future of the Rupnik mosaics.
“This occupies my mind, my prayer, and my heart every day, especially when I meet victims of abuse,” Micas said.
In an interview at the bishop’s residence in Lourdes, Micas acknowledged that, for him, this is a “very, very difficult decision to make.”
“But I have to make it,” he added.
Since forming the commission, Micas has met with victims of abuse, heard from sacred art specialists, and consulted with experts from across France who make up the commission.
“And we’ve received letters, letters, a pile of letters — people very angry because the mosaics are still there and other people who were very angry at the idea we could remove them,” he said.
The bishop shared how he was inspired to form the commission after a conversation he had with a woman from England who had served as a volunteer in Lourdes for many years, aiding the sick who come to wash in the baths seeking healing.
“She told me … ‘I met many, many women who come to Lourdes in order to ask for special healing after abuse. And they come to the Immaculate Conception to be cured, to be healed, to find consolation.’”
The woman went on to describe how the architecture of Lourdes’ Basilica of the Immaculate Conception with its grand entrance of two large curving ramps on either side of “Rosary Square” was meant to convey “‘the arms of the Immaculate Conception embracing her children.’”
“‘And now, for me, for them, the arms are not the arms of the Immaculate Conception. They are the arms of Father Rupnik.’”
This encounter left an impression on the bishop and the rector of the Lourdes sanctuary, and shortly thereafter Micas decided to form the commission on Rupnik’s mosaics in March 2023.
Approaching the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes with its soaring spires, it is hard to miss the 21st-century addition by Rupnik’s mosaic school, Centro Aletti, to the facade of the lower basilica. Rupnik’s wide-eyed figures are set against bright gold backdrops in a marked contrast with the shrine’s neo-Gothic stone facade.
The original basilica was built at the request of the Virgin Mary during the 13th apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirous in the Lourdes’ Grotto in 1858: “Go and tell the priests to build a chapel here and that people should come in procession.”
The Rupnik mosaics, added in 2008, depict the luminous mysteries of the rosary with the “Wedding Feast at Cana” in the center. Rupnik’s signature red dot decorates one of the arched panels above the entrance.
Rupnik, a priest and artist, has been accused of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse of religious sisters. He was removed from the Jesuits last June, and the Vatican has announced that Rupnik will face a canonical process over the abuse allegations after Pope Francis decided to waive the statute of limitations on the claims.
The priest’s prolific art career that followed his alleged abuse has created a problem for many shrines and Catholic churches across Europe and North America. Rupnik’s workshop has accounted for projects for more than 200 liturgical spaces around the world, including Fatima, the Vatican, the John Paul II shrine in Washington, D.C., and the tomb of St. Padre Pio.
Some have argued that to remove Rupnik’s art would be a manifestation of “cancel culture” and point to the work of Renaissance artists with scandalous personal lives. Others highlight the allegations that the accused priest convinced religious sisters to commit sins with him by persuading them that sinful acts would worship God and ask if his sacred art might likewise be imbued with and communicate “a false Gospel.”
For Lourdes, the problem is felt acutely as the Marian shrine is known throughout the world as a place of healing and consolation, and in this unique role should be a privileged place for abuse victims seeking healing. The French bishops have underscored this by gathering in Lourdes to pray and fast for victims of abuse.
Bishop Micas is aware that many other Catholic shrines and churches that also contain Rupnik’s mosaics may be looking to Lourdes to see what he decides.
“I very often say that the decision we will make here is made for Lourdes and only for Lourdes,” he said.
“It cannot be extended to any other place where there are mosaics of Rupnik’s because Lourdes is Lourdes and it is for weak people, sick people, special people. And we have to serve the message of Lourdes, whatever the cost.”
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The good bishop appears to be bidding his time in the hope that this will blow over.
There is no reason to maintain the display of these grossly deficient derivative images executed by Marko Rupnik. His work is nothing but pedestrian confection produced by a perverted fraud.
This situation highlights a few problems in the Church among many. Inadequate understanding of what constitutes legitimate and masterful liturgical art, a willingness to turn the back to the reality of mortal unbelief in the Mystical Body, and the propensity to excuse the inexcusable for a spectrum of rationalizations.
None of this will be resolved until we cease to provide credence to bold fraudulence.
Rip these pedestrian derivative images the facade of the shrine. Perhaps it will provide Fatima the intestinal fortitude to do the same where the Basilica of the Holy Trinity is defaced by the same fraudulence. I witnessed it long before Rupnik’s hidden story was publicized. His imagination and execution is simply inauthentic.
Rupnik’s grotesque, empty-eyed “art” reveals the huge void within the man’s soul.
How can this be a “difficult” decision?
It’s the biggest non-brainer ever. Good vs. evil — those are the choices.
If our Church’s leaders aren’t able to discern the right path here — which any five-year-old child could tell you — then what hope is there for us?
This bishop needs until the Spring to make his decision to remove Rupnik’s “art”? This exemplifies what’s wrong with so many of our Church leaders.
The Rupnik artifacts are clip-art-icons of a morally deceitful fraud enterprise, run by a sociopath sex abuser.
They are a perfect distillation of “the-contemporary-iconoclast-anti-christ-church-built-by-frauds-like-McCarrick.”
They communicate the “wind-swept-soul” of the monied mediocrity of the post-Christian-katholik zombie-church-establishment.
Given the above, I am not surprised at all that this particular Bishop of Lourdes, and I am regret to admit, most Bishops, are finding it very difficult to let go of the Rupnik artifacts.
A beautiful hymn heard on Sunday can help us make the “WWJD” decision:
“In Him there is no darkness at all.”
Pack ‘em up…and gift them to the doorway over every single Jez college campus and seminary, under the assumption that “art-Rupnik” is a fitting adornment for “the-Jez-culture.”
Terrible as Rupnik is the far bigger disgrace and affront to the faithful is the disturbing fact that Lourdes a place where miracles of healing are said to take place no longer, since covid allows people to bath in the miraculous waters. You can wash your face and hands but full immersion is out. Apparently just as the superbug knew the difference between a scotch egg and pizza it can also differentiate between legs and arms.
Rupnik’s soulless faces, vacant eyes reflect his own interior. The sooner Bishop Micas stops wringing his hands and tears the monstrosities down the better for all including himself.
I do not evaluate the worth of a book by the life of its author. When I admire a painting, I do not first think of the painter and how (s)he spent their life when they were not painting. For me, it is first and foremost about the art itself.
I do not think of an artist’s life when I look at his painting either.
However, Rupnic’s art does not belong to a category of a secular art where a successful self-expression of an artist is all that counts, his personal conduct being unimportant. Because Rupnic’s art is in the Church it is called “sacred” or “ecclesial” art or “icons”. “Ecclesial” means that the art within the church’s walls belongs to all faithful. The Christian sacred art expresses the Church’s understanding of God, it is “theology in colours”. Its major function is to lift a soul to God and to aid a prayer. This is how the function of the sacred art was defined by the Seventh Ecumenical Council which is binding for the Roman Catholics as much as it is binding for the Eastern Orthodox.
An artist who works for the Church has a grave responsibility:
– to be a good theologian not to twist the faith in his images;
– to have humility to surrender to God and forget about an unrestrained self-expression;
– to try to live as pure a life as possible because his work demands the help of the Holy Spirit.
Basically, an iconographer in his work is a slave to God. It is a work which demands extreme self-denial.
Does Rupnic fit those categories and description? Does his art speak of pure Love of Christ for a soul? Does it induce peace and contemplation? Does it help to develop an attachment to Our Lord?
I am aware of the fact that the Western Church lost a concept of an iconographer and sacred art long ago. One can refresh his memory via googling “western medieval art”. For true Christian mosaics, google “Ravenna Mosaics” and observe the spirit there. The works of Rupnic are the best evaluated next to the examples of the true ecclesial art.
Well said Anna. Thank you.
And thank you for your second comment relaying the story of Rupnik’s destruction of true iconography, to make way for what can very fairly be called his “diabolical-graphics.”
And I am appalled (but not in the least surprised) that the Church establishment granted authority to Rupnik to destroy the iconography of Kornoukhiv.
The “diabolical-Rupnik-iconoclast-kraft-works” are a testament to the delusions of our contemporary-katholik-establishment, who, being seduced by the “spirit-of-Rupnik,” are revealed to be themselves bereft of Christian culture.
It sounds as if you subscribe to Oscar Wilde’s idea that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. Rupnik’s art belies his life. Vacuous, banal, simple, and stupid.
OTOH, Jesus said: Let your yes be yes and your no mean no. The productions originating from our mouths as well as from our hands betray the inner workings of one’s mind, thought, heart, and soul.
The bishop of Lourdes should tear down the ‘art.’ He should recommend the confessional to Rupnik; as penance, Rupnik could be asked to refund whatever he charged for the forgeries he pawned as art representing holy figures of History and the Beloved and True Faith.
Rupnik wouldn’t know holy if it gobsmacked and whisked him to heaven.
I will add something relevant here. I am an iconographer yet I did not know about the following event. More than two decades ago Pope John Paul II, who was very keen to bring the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches together, commissioned an Orthodox iconographer Alexander Kornoukhov (well-known in Russia) to make mosaics for his personal chapel ‘Redemptoris Mater’. Not then so well-known Rupnic was already in his studio in Rome so he overseed the organizational stuff there. Kornoukhov worked for two years and completed the altar wall with a ceiling and was in the process of doing other three walls when Rupnic ordered the demolition of his mosaics. Only one survived. Rupnic then used that space for his own art which is still there.
Now one can see in ‘Redemptoris Mater’ an odd combination, of a “cut out” from the environment mosaic ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ by Kornoukhov surrounded by quite diabolical Rupnic’s stuff.
After completing ‘Redemptoris Mater’ a career of Rupnic reportedly took off. The interested can see the image of Christ Pantocrator in the ceiling by Kornoukhov (left) that was demolished with Rupnic’s work (right):
https://wiez.pl/2023/03/22/dzielo-jako-slad-duchowosci-autora-na-marginesie-sprawy-marko-rupnika/
This is the work of Kornoukhov before a demolition
https://www.kornoukhov.com/kopiya-1996-1997-karaganda-dk-nemce
I am at loss with the sheer evil here. One may like or dislike the work of an Orthodox artist but there is no question that it conveys light and awe and faith. I personally like it very much and I am glad I discovered it.
So, Rupnic apparently not only “killed” the souls of the Sisters and blasphemed, he also killed the true art.
What cuts me most though is that Rupnic was permitted to do so.