Nuns vs the Vatican: documentary alleges sexual abuse and misconduct in the Catholic church
Nuns, which is directed by Emmy winner in Lorena Luciano and executive produced by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay and premiered at the Toronto film festival on Saturday, largely centres around Gloria Branciani and Mirjam Kovac, who are among dozens allegedly victimized by Marko Rupnik, a former Jesuit priest currently awaiting canonical trial for sexual, spiritual and physical abuse.
Rupnik was excommunicated in 2020 for absolving the sins of a novice with whom he had sex. But that excommunication was lifted within the same month after Rupnik repented. One expert voice in the documentary points out that the excommunication could only have been lifted with authorization from Pope Francis.
He is referred to in the documentary as the Michelangelo of the John Paul II papacy, exerting much of that influence to commit his alleged crimes.
He coaxed Branciani into joining Loyola so she didn’t lose her connection to Christ. He would speak of religious art and iconography suggestively, describing paintings of the virgin mother revealing the baby Jesus’s leg sensually, for example. He would say that connecting with Catholicism involves both the spirit and the body, suggesting that sex with him is like touching the divine. Eventually, he cited the Holy Trinity in pursuit of an orgy with Branciani and another nun.
According to Branciani, when she reported the abuse, she was punished by Loyala’s mother superior, Sister Ivanka Hosta, and forced out of religious life by Father Tomáš Špidlík in Rome, who would even write the resignation letter on her behalf. These actions left her ostracized by the community she considered family and dealing with suicidal ideation, Branciani says.
Branciani joins several others in Nuns who have experienced similar abuses across the Catholic Church, including Barbara Dorris, director at Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap), who describes being sexually abused, impregnated and forced to endure a life-threatening abortion with bleach by a doctor who shamed her viciously.
She is among the voices in the documentary painting a picture of how widespread these crimes can be – a 1994-95 study fielding anonymous responses reported that one in three nuns experience sexual abuse by a priest – and how the system ensures victims stay silent. Nuns, after all, take vows of poverty, chastity and silence, a system that isolates and make them easy prey, especially for the very priests they confess to, holding power not only over them but their families and communities. Rupnik himself is said to have reinforced that power dynamic by comparing God’s relationship to man as man’s relationship to women.
The patriarchy in the church is in full view in the documentary when protesters approach a priest about the unveiling of more art from Rupnik despite the allegations against him – his art, which Catholics kneel and pray before, was created while he was perpetrating abuse. One priest simply responds on camera that there is malice behind such allegations.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...eview-tiff
Nuns, which is directed by Emmy winner in Lorena Luciano and executive produced by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Mariska Hargitay and premiered at the Toronto film festival on Saturday, largely centres around Gloria Branciani and Mirjam Kovac, who are among dozens allegedly victimized by Marko Rupnik, a former Jesuit priest currently awaiting canonical trial for sexual, spiritual and physical abuse.
Rupnik was excommunicated in 2020 for absolving the sins of a novice with whom he had sex. But that excommunication was lifted within the same month after Rupnik repented. One expert voice in the documentary points out that the excommunication could only have been lifted with authorization from Pope Francis.
He is referred to in the documentary as the Michelangelo of the John Paul II papacy, exerting much of that influence to commit his alleged crimes.
He coaxed Branciani into joining Loyola so she didn’t lose her connection to Christ. He would speak of religious art and iconography suggestively, describing paintings of the virgin mother revealing the baby Jesus’s leg sensually, for example. He would say that connecting with Catholicism involves both the spirit and the body, suggesting that sex with him is like touching the divine. Eventually, he cited the Holy Trinity in pursuit of an orgy with Branciani and another nun.
According to Branciani, when she reported the abuse, she was punished by Loyala’s mother superior, Sister Ivanka Hosta, and forced out of religious life by Father Tomáš Špidlík in Rome, who would even write the resignation letter on her behalf. These actions left her ostracized by the community she considered family and dealing with suicidal ideation, Branciani says.
Branciani joins several others in Nuns who have experienced similar abuses across the Catholic Church, including Barbara Dorris, director at Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap), who describes being sexually abused, impregnated and forced to endure a life-threatening abortion with bleach by a doctor who shamed her viciously.
She is among the voices in the documentary painting a picture of how widespread these crimes can be – a 1994-95 study fielding anonymous responses reported that one in three nuns experience sexual abuse by a priest – and how the system ensures victims stay silent. Nuns, after all, take vows of poverty, chastity and silence, a system that isolates and make them easy prey, especially for the very priests they confess to, holding power not only over them but their families and communities. Rupnik himself is said to have reinforced that power dynamic by comparing God’s relationship to man as man’s relationship to women.
The patriarchy in the church is in full view in the documentary when protesters approach a priest about the unveiling of more art from Rupnik despite the allegations against him – his art, which Catholics kneel and pray before, was created while he was perpetrating abuse. One priest simply responds on camera that there is malice behind such allegations.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...eview-tiff
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
