Mosaics by ex-communicated Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik, who has been accused of sex abuse by at least 30 women, will remain at the Lourdes shrine in France—at least for now—amid calls for their removal.

Lourdes Bishop Jean-Marc Micas, in an interview with the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, said the works eventually should be removed but he has chosen to leave them in place for now so as not to “tear the church apart.”

Micas was first approached by a victim of sexual violence in the church in February 2023 and called her testimony “extremely dignified.” In her remarks, she said she had been affected by Rupnik’s mosaics on the façade of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.

The bishop convened a commission to advise him in making his decision on how to handle the situation, which included a prosecutor, a lawyer specializing in copyright matters, and other church experts on art and sexual assault. The commission concluded in October, agreeing that Rupnik’s actions were “intolerable” but differed in their views of the matter.

Micas said some members of the commission didn’t approve of participating in “cancel culture,” while the other side warned of the public relations risks of being perceived as not taking matters of abuse by clergy seriously if the works remained.

Mosaics by artist and priest Marko Rupnik, displayed on the Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire Basilica in the Sanctuary of Lourdes, in Lourdes, France, 2023. Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images.

“My deep, formed, intimate conviction is that they will one day need to be removed: they prevent Lourdes from reaching all the people for whom the sanctuary’s message is intended,” he said. “But I have decided not to remove them immediately, given the passions and violence the subject incites.”

He said that the lives of the victims and their personhood are “infinitely more valuable” than even the most beautiful work of art and that he would continue to work to convince the church’s constituency that the works should be promptly removed.

Neither Micas nor the Vatican returned a request for comment by press time. When asked to comment about Rupnik mosaics at the Saint John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., its local representatives declined to comment and pointed to a statement from the Knights of Columbus, the primary organization responsible for its management.

The Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternal service organization founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882. Its New Haven headquarters also displays works by Rupnik. Last week, the organization announced the conclusion of an internal review examining the future of the mosaics at the Washington shrine and its headquarters.

“The Knights of Columbus has decided to cover these mosaics because our first concern must be for victims of sexual abuse, who have already suffered immensely, and who may be further injured by the ongoing display of the mosaics at the Shrine,” said Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly. “This decision is rooted in a foundational purpose of the Knights of Columbus, which is to protect families, especially women and children, and those who are vulnerable and voiceless.”

Kelly said that shrines are unique places of healing and prayer that should not cause victims further suffering, particularly in the United States where Catholics “continue to suffer in a unique way from the revelations of sexual abuse and, at times, from the response of the Church.”

Details about how and when the works will be covered or removed from view were not provided. It was not clear what would be done with the works when they are removed.

Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, 2007. Photo: Eric Vandeville/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.

Rupnik was excommunicated by the Vatican in 2019 for absolving a penitent with whom he had engaged in sexual activity; he was reinstated weeks later. Sexual abuse allegations against the priest continued to surface a year on, and Rupnik was expelled by the Jesuits in 2023. He remains a Catholic priest whose artworks are still installed in numerous Catholic sites around the world, including the Vatican—which will pose challenges for church officials all the way up to Pope Francis, who is a Jesuit.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the pope’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, has urged Vatican offices to stop displaying Rupnik’s works after Francis ordered for an investigation to be reopened and removed the statute of limitations that previously prevented Rupnik from facing a church trial.

Still, some question the necessity of removing the works from their locations, likening them to destroying works by the murderer Caravaggio or the sex tourist Paul Gauguin, a point often made by anti-censorship activists.

“Why are we more upset about his art that the fact that he is still allowed to hold a chalice?” Rome-based art historian Elizabeth Lev said in comments to the Catholic Herald. She noted that Rupnik was often aided in his murals and questioned whether those assistants should be punished. “Now those people who thought he was God’s gift to art want to dump him? How were they such blind patrons?”