Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization's decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. / Credit: EWTN News

Rome Newsroom, Jul 11, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

The Knights of Columbus announced Thursday they will cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, a dramatic move that represents the strongest public stand yet by a major Catholic organization regarding the former Jesuit’s embattled art.

The 2.1-million-member lay Catholic fraternal order said July 11 it would use fabric to cover the floor-to-ceiling mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut — at least until the completion of a formal Vatican investigation into the Slovenian priest’s alleged abuse.

Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, told EWTN News Thursday the opaque material would be installed “very soon” but gave no firm timetable. The Knights said in a statement released Thursday afternoon that the artwork may later be more permanently hidden with a plaster covering after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issues its ruling on Rupnik.

The decision by the Knights to cover the sprawling works, which envelop both spaces, was made at the end of a comprehensive, confidential review process that included consultations with sexual abuse victims and those who minister to them, art historians, pilgrims to the shrine, bishops, and moral theologians.

“The Knights of Columbus have decided to cover these mosaics because our first concern must be for victims of sexual abuse, who have already suffered immensely in the Church, and who may be further injured by the ongoing display of the mosaics at the shrine,” Kelly said in the statement.

“While opinions varied among those consulted,” he said, “there was a strong consensus to prioritize the needs of victims, especially because the allegations are current, unresolved, and horrific.”

Kelly reiterated that point in his interview with EWTN News.

“Our decision process really came down to multiple factors. But the No. 1 factor was compassion for victims,” Kelly said. “We needed to prioritize victims over anything, any material thing. So that was our primary consideration.”

The first segment of Kelly’s interview with EWTN News will air on “EWTN News Nightly” Thursday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. Additional comments will air on “EWTN News In Depth” on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.

Once a renowned artist Rupnik, whose mosaics are featured in hundreds of Catholic shrines, churches, and chapels around the world, was expelled from the Jesuits in June 2023.

His expulsion followed a long review of what the society called “highly credible” accusations of serial spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse of as many as 30 religious sisters by the priest spanning decades. Some women allege Rupnik’s abuse sometimes happened as part of the process of creating his art at the Centro Aletti, an art school he founded in Rome.

The Vatican announced in late October 2023 that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations in the Rupnik case, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to do a canonical investigation into the abuse allegations.

There has been no further communication from the Vatican about the inquiry, and it is unclear whether Rupnik may still be living in Rome despite having been given priestly faculties in a diocese of his home country of Slovenia last year.

Growing public outcry

What to do with Rupnik’s once widely-praised works, colorful mosaics characterized by grand, flowing figures and large eyes, has proven to be a divisive question in the wake of the numerous allegations against him, which first came to public attention in December 2022.

While some want to await Vatican judgment before dismantling and replacing Rupnik’s works, much of it made in collaboration with other artists of the Centro Aletti — a Rupnik-founded art school and theological center in Rome — the public outcry for the removal of his art has intensified.

The Knights also announced several immediate changes that would be enacted at the shrine in solidarity with abuse victims, including providing educational materials about the mosaics, making clear that their display during the consultation process “was not intended to ignore, deny, or diminish the allegations of abuse.”

Every Mass at the St. John Paul II National Shrine will now also include a prayer of the faithful for victims of sexual abuse, and saints with connections to abuse victims, such as St. Josephine Bakhita, will be specially commemorated.

The group said it became aware of the allegations against Rupnik in December 2022 — and noted that the artist, while under investigation, remains a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia. 

“This decision is rooted in a foundational purpose of the Knights of Columbus, which is to protect families, especially women and children, and those who are vulnerable and voiceless,” Kelly said in the July 11 statement.

The St. John Paul II National Shrine is a pastoral initiative of the Knights of Columbus, established in 2011, and designated a national shrine by the U.S. Catholic bishops in 2014.

Rupnik’s mosaics were installed at the shrine in 2015. The Holy Family Chapel at the Knights’ headquarters has featured Rupnik’s art since 2005.

Highlighting the John Paul II shrine’s mission of evangelization, the supreme knight said, “the art we sponsor must therefore serve as a stepping stone — not a stumbling block — to faith in Jesus Christ and his Church.”

Rupnik has not made any statements since the allegations came to light.

An eye on Lourdes

The Knights’ move to conceal the mosaics follows just a week after the bishop of Lourdes, France, said that despite his personal feelings that Rupnik’s artwork at the renowned Marian shrine there should be removed, he has decided to wait to make a final decision due to “strong opposition on the part of some.”

After forming a special commission in May 2023, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes announced July 2 that more time was needed “to discern what should be done” about Rupnik’s mosaics at the Marian apparition site, because his belief that they should be torn down “would not be sufficiently understood” and “would add even more division and violence” at this time.

As a “first step,” the French bishop said he had decided the mosaics will no longer be lit up at night during the shrine’s nightly candlelight rosary processions.

In his interview with EWTN News, Kelly said the Lourdes bishop’s intent to make a decision of some kind this spring galvanized the Knights to act at this time.

In his July 11 statement, Kelly thanked the Lourdes bishop for his “thoughtful decision” and said it “both informed and confirmed us in our own decision-making. Shrines are places of healing, prayer, and reconciliation. They should not cause victims further suffering.”

Emphasizing the importance of discernment based on mission and context, the supreme knight said: “Every situation is different. In the United States, Catholics continue to suffer in a unique way from the revelations of sexual abuse and, at times, from the response of the Church. It is clear to us that, as a national shrine, our decision must respect this country’s special need for healing.”

The Knights of Columbus was founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882 by Blessed Michael McGivney, a parish priest. Dedicated to the advancement of the group’s key principles — charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism — its members in 2022 provided 50 million service hours and nearly $185 million to charitable causes in their communities.

National Catholic Register Editor-in-Chief Shannon Mullen contributed to this story.

Pope Francis speaks at the 50th annual Social Week of Catholics in Trieste, Italy, on the morning of July 7, 2024. At his arrival in the northern Italian city, he was greeted by Archbishop Luigi Renna, president of the organizing committee (R), and Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the Italian bishops' conference (L). / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jul 7, 2024 / 08:06 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Sunday urged Catholics to share their faith in the public square, and to combat political polarization by supporting person-centered democracy.

“Let us not be fooled by easy solutions. Let us instead get passionate about the common good,” he said at a Catholic conference on democracy in the northern Italian city of Trieste July 7.

Francis participated in the last morning of the 50th Social Week of Catholics, an annual meeting of the Catholic Church in Italy aimed at promoting the social doctrine of the Church. The theme of the July 3-7 congress was “At the Heart of Democracy: Participate between History and the Future.”

In his speech, the pope spoke strongly of the importance of democracy — encouraging participation over partisanship, and comparing ideologies to “seductresses.”

“As Catholics, on this horizon, we cannot be satisfied with a marginal or private faith,” the pope said before around 1,200 conference participants at the Generali Convention Center. “This means not so much to be heard, but above all to have the courage to make proposals for justice and peace in the public debate.”

“We have something to say, but not to defend privileges. No. We need to be a voice, a voice that denounces and proposes in a society that is often mute and where too many have no voice.”

“This is political love,” Francis underlined, adding that “it is a form of charity that allows politics to live up to its responsibilities and get out of polarizations, these polarizations that impoverish and do not help understand and address the challenges.”

The Social Week of Catholics congress was held in Trieste, a port city located on a narrow strip of Italian territory in the country’s far northeastern point, bordered by the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia.

Pope Francis arrived in Trieste by helicopter from the Vatican in the early morning July 7. After addressing congress delegates from across Italy, he met briefly with representatives of other Christian traditions and with a group of immigrants and people with disabilities.

The pope then celebrated Mass for an estimated 8,500 Catholics in Trieste’s Unità d’Italia Square before again boarding a helicopter to return to the Vatican.

In speaking about the Christian vision of democracy, the pontiff quoted a 1988 pastoral note from the Italian bishops, which said democracy is meant, “to give meaning to everyone’s commitment to the transformation of society; to give attention to the people who remain outside or on the margins of winning economic processes and mechanisms; to give space to social solidarity in all its forms; to give support to the return of a solicitous ethic of the common good [...]; to give meaning to the development of the country, understood [...] as an overall improvement in the quality of life, collective coexistence, democratic participation, and authentic freedom.”

“This vision, rooted in the Social Doctrine of the Church,” Pope Francis said, applies “not only to the Italian context, but represent a warning for the whole of human society and for the journey of all peoples.”

“In fact, just as the crisis of democracy cuts across different realities and nations, in the same way the attitude of responsibility towards social transformations is a call addressed to all Christians, wherever they find themselves living and working, in every part of the world,” he added.

The pope also emphasized the importance of combating a culture of waste, as exhibited by a self-referential power “incapable of listening and serving people.”

He recalled the importance of the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity and condemned a certain attitude of “welfare-ism” that does not recognize the dignity of people, calling it “social hypocrisy.”

“Everyone must feel part of a community project; no one must feel worthless,” he said.

"Abortion isn't wrong because the Catholic Church says it's wrong,” Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, pointed out. “The Catholic Church says it's wrong because it's inherently wrong.” / Credit: "EWTN News Nightly"/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Jul 6, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).

As the 2024 U.S. presidential election heats up, a Wisconsin bishop is calling on President Joe Biden to consider “the dignity of life” while other Wisconsin Catholics are also voicing their support for the pro-life cause.

“Our goal is certainly that every one of our parishes has people equipped, informed to receive, to welcome, to accompany, and to really practically help both women and men that find themselves in crisis pregnancy or crisis parenthood,” Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, told EWTN News correspondent Owen Jensen.

When asked what he would say to Catholic president Biden, Hying responded: “I would say, Mr. President, we invite you to look at what the Church says about the dignity of life.” 

“It’s important to point out that abortion isn’t wrong because the Catholic Church says it’s wrong,” Hying continued. “The Catholic Church says it’s wrong because it’s inherently wrong.”

Wisconsin pro-life advocates are awaiting a state court decision on an 1849 abortion law protecting unborn children. The legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, Matt Sande, voiced concern about the Wisconsin State Supreme Court’s current makeup, calling the court, which has a liberal majority of 4-3, “radicalized.”

“Not only are we looking at them ruling 940.04, our abortion ban, unenforceable, overturning it, they could be looking to find a right to abortion in our state constitution,” he told Jensen on “EWTN News Nightly.” 

Tom Usle, the northern regional manager of Students for Life, noted that now is the time to “step up” for the right to life. 

“It’s a battleground state, to be sure,” Usle said. “But we also see just more and more people are really coming to the realization that it is on us now to step up.” 

“We no longer have the excuse of: ‘Roe’ is in the way, we can’t do anything about abortion,” he said. “Now is the time that we really do have the power.”

A pro-life student in Milwaukee credited adoption with saving her life from abortion. 

“All glory be to God that I was kept and able to live given the chance at life,” Isabelle Thompson told Jensen.

Thompson, who is Catholic, gave advice for expectant mothers who may be considering abortion. 

“A pregnancy that you’ll go through is nine months of your life, and that’s hard to give that up, even if you’re not going to keep that child — especially if you’re not going to keep that child,” she said. “That’s a hard nine months to give of your life, but that’s nine months as opposed to a child’s entire life that could be gone.” 

To her biological mother who put her up for adoption years ago, Thompson said: “Just thank you. Not only for giving me life, but you gave my parents a child, something that they couldn’t have. Adoption is one of their greatest blessings.”