Fr Marko Rupnik, recently expelled from the Jesuit order, is pictured in a 2015 photo in Rome. Photo: OSV News/Cristian Gennari, KNA The Knights of Columbus announced last week it will cover mosaics by the accused abuser Fr Marko Rupnik in Washington, DC, and Connecticut, a dramatic move that represents the strongest public stand yet by a major Catholic organisation 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 Fr 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.