VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — With the Vatican in dire need of well-directed communications as the Holy See attempts to promote the Synod and the 2025 Jubilee, the inclusion of Father James Martin, SJ and a close ally of scandal plagued Father Marko Rupnik in the Vatican’s communications department may strike some observers as odd.
In 2020, official figures recorded expenditures of €30 million ($32.6 million USD). Figures for 2021 show that the Dicastery drew some €40 million ($43.5 million USD). In recent years (figures have not been published since 2022), the Dicastery has accounted for between 20 percent and 25 percent of the Vatican’s budget.
But is the money being spent to the best ability? Addressing the plenary assembly of the Dicastery for Communication on Thursday, Pope Francis asked the office to reduce spending during their meeting.
He urged the Vatican’s in-house news outlets to build bridges, foster communion and “inclusion, dialogue, the quest for peace.”
The upcoming 2025 Jubilee, Francis told them, “is a great occasion to bear witness of our faith and our hope to the world.” He also urged them to aid him to “make the Heart of Jesus known to the world.”
READ: How to gain a plenary indulgence during the 2025 Jubilee year
With that being said, the staff of such a communications department really is policy. The appointment of each member of the Vatican’s body for communications sends a message about exactly what the Vatican is trying to promote.
But herein lies the problem.
The Dicastery is composed of 13 superiors, 20 members and 20 consultors. All of these individuals, naturally enough, participated in the Plenary Assembly and in the papal audience. Two in particular are especially problematic as they tie the Vatican to the promotion of anti-Catholic ideology and a priest accused of serial abuse in multiple forms.
The Dicastery draws a huge budget, larger than numerous other Vatican Curial offices combined.
Fr. James Martin
Fr. Martin, a Jesuit and prominent LGBT activist, has been a consulter to the Dicastery since April 2017, shortly after the Dicastery’s formation in 2015, via the consolidation of prior communications offices. Appointed by the Pope to the new Dicastery, the Vatican then invited Martin to speak at the 2018 World Meeting of Families in Dublin on “Exploring how parishes can support those families with members who identify as LGBTI+.”
In 2022, Francis renewed Martin’s involvement with the Vatican, appointing him as a consulter for another five-year term. During the Dicastery’s plenary assembly that year, Francis addressed the group and praised Martin for his style as a “communicator” as well as for his instruction on “how to pray” – as contained in a 2021 book the Jesuit priest wrote.
READ: Pope re-appoints pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin as adviser to Vatican communications department
Martin’s involvement with the Dicastery – and his increasingly prominent activity at the Vatican and with Francis – goes with his longstanding record of promoting LGBT ideology in dissent from Catholic teaching, and he has been described as “arguably the most prominent activist” in the Church for LGBT issues.
His record also includes promoting images drawn from a series of blasphemous works by homosexual artist Douglas Blanchard and describing viewing God as male as “damaging.” Martin has additionally promoted homosexual unions and called for openly homosexual individuals to kiss during the sign of peace at the Novus Ordo Mass.
More recently, Martin revealed that he knows “hundreds” of homosexual priests who have been his “mentors,” which comes against the backdrop of his having encouraged homosexual priests to “come out.”
As arguably the most public figure in the U.S. ecclesial sphere promoting LGBT ideology, Martin has become synonymous with, and indeed a leader of, attempts to promote LGBT issues within the Church, arguing the Church needs more “inclusion.”
Such a public role has only increased due to his recent participation at the Synod on Synodality, at which he was present due to direct invitation of the Pope.
JUST IN: A number of Synod Cardinals & other members attended Fr James Martin’s & Outreach’s pro-LGBT event in the Jesuit Curia in Rome today.
“Let’s allow love to be expressed,” a bisexual Catholic man ‘married’ to another man told those present.
READ: https://t.co/qY28FBsC2v pic.twitter.com/XSDjSE495o— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 8, 2024
In stark contrast to the views that Martin promotes – although he personally denies that he rejects Church teaching – the Catholic Church teaches that “‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’ and “are contrary to the natural law,” adding explicitly that “under no circumstances can they be approved
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) 1986 document “On the pastoral care of homosexual persons” also rebuffs the Pope’s version of “outreach,” writing that a “truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”
His membership in a Vatican office dedicated to the curation of the Church’s public image and news leads to only one conclusion: namely, that such activism is accepted in the Church – at least implicitly, because even though official teaching says otherwise it is not enforced.
LGBT activists in and outside of the Church will know that they have a champion in Martin, and hence in how the Church attempts to present itself.
Nataša Govekar
Another highly controversial figure in the Dicastery is Nataša Govekar, who as director of the Theological-Pastoral Department serves as one of the 20 superiors.
Govekar’s presence at the Dicastery has been key since its inception, and she is responsible for monitoring and operating the Pope’s Instagram and Twitter accounts. She has for many years been welcomed as a keynote speaker at conferences on Catholic journalism due to her leading role at the Vatican.
But Govekar has another role in Rome. She is a member of the Aletti Center, where she works on the “theology of images.” The Aletti Center has become infamous in recent years as the scandal around its founder, Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, has become increasingly public.
Govekar is a close associate of Rupnik, having collaborated with him not just on the Aletti Center’s famous mosaics but also co-authoring a number of books with the priest.
Rupnik has been accused of sexually and spiritually abusing numerous people, including nuns and male victims. The former Jesuit was also excommunicated for absolving a sexual accomplice in confession but subsequently had the penalty revoked. He subsequently had the penalty swiftly revoked – with much speculation over whether Pope Francis personally intervened to swiftly lift the excommunication.
After international outcry, Pope Francis announced in October 2023 that Rupnik was subject to a reopened investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for abuse. The credibility of the well-documented allegations of Rupnik’s serial abuse is deemed to be “very high” by his former superiors.
One year later, no updates have officially been made about the Vatican’s investigation. In the meantime, his images have been promoted by Pope Francis in June 2023 and by the Vatican’ Synod office in September 2023, and they still remain in regular use by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication.
Images produced by Fr. Rupnik are still being used by Vatican News’ liturgical calendar for March, May, June, July, August & December of this year.
Rupnik is accused of forcing “threesomes” in imitation of the Trinity, involving “drink[ing] his semen from a chalice at dinner.” pic.twitter.com/mklNbR0yrR— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) January 31, 2024
Alleged victims of Rupnik have attested that his images are intimately connected to his sexual abuse. They allege Rupnik made sexual advances during painting sessions, after Holy Mass or after hearing confessions in his Rome Aletti Art Center.
READ: Alleged victims of Father Rupnik call for ‘truth and justice’ as answers demanded from Vatican
A former member of Rupnik’s Loyola community, using the pseudonym “Anna,” stated that Rupnik used his paintings to attract interest in himself and to cultivate relationships.
Anna , now named Gloria Branciani, said Rupnik’s “sexual obsession was not extemporaneous but deeply connected to his conception of art and his theological thinking.” He was also accused to having demanded threesomes to imitate the Trinity, and of forcing religious sisters to drink his semen from a chalice.
Many Vatican commentators have highlighted the unavoidable link between Govekar at the Dicastery and the continued promotion of Rupnik’s images by the Vatican.
Indeed, an official decision by the Dicastery superiors was made in July 2023 to continue using Rupnik’s images. As La Croix reported at the time, “internally, several sources interviewed by La Croix denounced a ‘conflict of interest’ that would force the Vatican media to provide a minimum service on this delicate matter.”
READ: Vatican to continue promoting Rupnik’s images despite link to his alleged sex abuse
The Aletti Center – of which Govekar is a leading member – has vocally and persistently defended Rupnik in the face of the numerous allegations against him. He continues to live there, just meters away from St. Mary Major Basilica.
But even some international fans of Rupnik’s work – such as papal biographer Austen Ivereigh – have been shocked at the Vatican’s use of his work in official news portals while he is being investigated.
The Dicastery draws on more money than the Holy See’s intentional diplomatic efforts. It has the task of being the Holy See’s “single point of reference for communication.”
Yet, thanks to Francis, the Dicastery’s personnel include one of the foremost LGBT advocates in the Church and a close collaborator of one of the most scandal-plagued priests in Rome. If personnel is policy – and an established communication offices should be able to understand the optics that such personnel present – then what exactly is the policy?