(Crux. Elise Ann Allen).
Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s doctrine czar, has said that despite the broad use of alleged spiritual or mystical experiences to commit and justify abuse in the church, disputes over terminology can muddle prosecution. His perspective may have implications for efforts to prosecute some of the most high-profile and contentious abuse cases today, including the case of Slovenian ex-Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, who stands accused of multiple acts of abuse against dozens of adult women, mostly nuns, stretching over more than 30 years.
Speaking to journalists during a May 17 press conference presenting new norms for evaluating the authenticity of Marian apparitions or other spiritual phenomena, Fernández was asked about what is sometimes described as “false mysticism” in abuse cases. Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Fernández replied, “When we speak of false mysticism, we must be careful…false mysticism is used a lot and in a lot of different ways.”