The Vatican has ordered the dissolution of the Community of Loyola, a religious community of women founded in Slovenia with the assistance of Fr Marko Rupnik, who has been accused of abuse, including of women in the community. Source: OSV News.
“I can confirm that by a decree signed in recent weeks, following an apostolic visitation and after consultation with those responsible for the visitation, with the ordinaries and others familiar with its life and work, the Community of Loyola has indeed been suppressed,” said Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, in a statement on Friday.
The Archdiocese of Ljubljana posted a notice on its website saying that the sisters were informed on Thursday that the Vatican Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life had ordered the community’s suppression and said they had a year to disband.
The founding members of the community, which now has about 45 members from five countries, made their first vows with the then-Archbishop Aloysius Šuštar of Ljubljana in 1991 and their constitutions were approved in 1994.
Ljubljana Archbishop Stanislav Zore ordered a visitation of the community in 2019 and the results were sent to the Vatican, which then asked the Rome Diocese, where the sisters’ generalate is located, to investigate further.
“On 20 October 2023, the dicastery issued a decree dissolving the Loyola Community because of serious problems concerning the exercise of authority and the way of life together,” the archdiocese said. “The Dicastery stipulated that the decree must be carried out within one year.”
Sr Ivanka Hosta, who founded the community with the assistance of Fr Rupnik, was removed as superior by the Vatican in September and sanctioned for an abusive style of governance, the Portuguese website 7MARGENS reported.
Fr Rupnik, an artist whose mosaics decorate churches and chapels at the Vatican and around the world, moved to Rome from Slovenia in the 1990s. He has been accused of sexually, spiritually or psychologically abusing more than 20 women and at least one man over a 40-year period.
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Vatican closes women’s community co-founded by Father Rupnik (By Cindy Wooden, CNS via OSV News)
