By Stephen P. White

But first a note: TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal will appear tonight on EWTN's "The World Over." Host Raymond Arroyo will discuss the Synod on Synodality with Bob and Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel. Now for Mr. White's column...

Last week, the Holy See announced that Pope Francis has decided to waive the statute of limitations on allegations against the former Jesuit and celebrity artist, Fr. Marko Rupnik. Rupnik, as you may recall, has been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse over the course of several decades. The pope's decision to waive the statute of limitations in this case is a welcome one.

The decision to waive the statute of limitations on these allegations would have been far more welcome, however, had the decision been made much sooner, if the case up to this point had been handled with a modicum of transparency, and if the concession to justice had not needed to be, as it were, extracted from the Holy Father by an outcry of indignation and righteous anger from the faithful and especially from many victims of clerical sexual abuse.

Relating the full details of the Rupnik saga - even those particulars that are publicly known - would require more space than we have here. But even a brief account is necessary to understand how inexplicable, and how inadequate, the handling of his case has been.

The first known allegations of Rupnik's sexual misconduct and abuse were brought to the attention of the Society of Jesus in 2018. Having been found credible, these allegations were reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. These allegations included the charge that Rupnik had offered absolution to an accomplice in sins against the Sixth Commandment - a grave crime that incurs the penalty of automatic excommunication.

In March of 2020, after the Jesuits determined that Rupnik had likely incurred excommunication, and after the Jesuits had sent the case to the CDF for further investigation, but before the CDF had confirmed (and subsequently lifted) that excommunication, Fr. Rupnik was invited to preach a Lenten Sermon to the pope and the Roman Curia.

A year later, in 2021, the Jesuits undertook another investigation of allegations against Rupnik from female members of his former community in Slovenia. This investigation determined there was sufficient evidence to begin a penal process against Rupnik. And, for the second time in two years, credible allegations against him were submitted to the CDF, this time with the recommendation that a penal process be undertaken.

Those allegations were submitted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in January of 2022. That same month, Pope Francis personally met with Rupnik. A month later, new restrictions were placed upon the priest by his Jesuit superiors. In October of 2022, the CDF (since renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) determined the statute of limitations had expired and no canonical process would be pursued.

Early this year, 2023, the Jesuits opened yet another internal investigation against Rupnik - by my count, the third investigation in five years. Meanwhile, Rupnik flouted the restrictions put upon him by the Jesuits. This persistent disobedience eventually led the Society of Jesus, in June of this year, to dismiss him from the order.

Which brings us to last week when it was reported that Fr. Marko Rupnik had been incardinated in the Slovenian Diocese of Koper where he, according to a statement from that diocese, "enjoys all the rights and duties of diocesan priests."

How is it possible that a priest facing so many allegations, confirmed as credible by so many different investigations, from so many different accusers, over so many years - how is it possible that in the year 2023 anyone could think that a just resolution of s...