‘Rebirth’ art project offers counternarrative for Father Rupnik accusers, abuse survivors

A major new artwork dedicated to the victims of spiritual and sexual abuse in the church is to be displayed at locations where disgraced priest artist Father Marko Rupnik’s mosaics are still exhibited.

Father Rupnik, a former Jesuit, is accused of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse by more than 20 women, including a number of nuns. His work adorns high-profile sanctuaries in Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil, the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, the Sanctuary of St. John Paul II in Kraków, Poland, and the Vatican.

Several locations have begun covering or removing his mosaics, including Lourdes and the St. John Paul shrine in Washington.

“Rebirth” is a monumental mosaic measuring 41 feet by 13 feet. It was designed by French artist Sister Samuelle, who alleges Father Rupnik abused her. Between 2008 and 2014, Sister Samuelle lived at Centro Aletti, which Father Rupnik established in Rome to bring artistic creativity and religious life together. Sister Samuelle was one of three women who went public in 2023 and 2024 revealing Rupnik’s abuse.

For Sister Samuelle, “Rebirth” offers a counternarrative to the abuse she and other survivors suffered. It is a “monument to the living” and an act of restoration. It aims to help survivors “piece the fragments back together and give them a new face: the face of a new life, or at least a life that can still be lived.” It is contemporary sacred art at the service of survivors to transform their suffering into rebirth or resurrection.

On the back of each piece of the mosaic are prayers, names and messages from survivors and those who assist survivors of abuse in different countries around the world.

The “Rebirth” project came about after a meeting between Sister Samuelle and French film director Quentin Delcourt to discuss her experiences with Rupnik.

“It was an encounter between two universes that are totally opposite — a filmmaker and an abused hermit nun,” Delcourt told Global Sisters Report. “We managed to create an artwork focused on the rehabilitation of survivors and which people will be able to learn about in 200 places around the world.”

In an interview recorded by Delcourt for his documentary film, Sister Samuelle explained, “Having been a victim — subjected to control and abuse in silence, fear and shame — having been a survivor — working to rebuild and reunify what was shattered and broken apart — it is now time to be reborn. ‘Rebirth’ is a moment which is now open to life, where one can live, not in spite of but through wounds that remain present. For Christians, it also evokes the Resurrection, where the living Christ is recognized by his loved ones through the wounds of his body — the very ones that caused his death.”

Delcourt said that Sister Samuelle’s design symbolizes “a person that has been a victim of abuse, which has been broken, and starts to reconnect all the pieces, to stand up and access rebirth.” She told Delcourt it represents dry ground that little by little finds its beauty again, finds its way of breathing, its way of living.

In the documentary, Sister Samuelle talks about how “Rebirth” allowed her to forge a new path beyond the shadow of Father Rupnik.

“I feel like I’ve moved on, I’m less focused on this story of Rupnik’s mosaic,” she said. “The ‘Rebirth’ project allowed me to talk about it from another perspective.”

Formerly a member of a religious community, in the wake of Father Rupnik’s abuse Sister Samuelle became a hermit.

“Today, I am a hermit. That doesn’t mean I live in a cave in the woods where a bear brings me a picnic basket,” she said in the documentary. “It means that I lead a religious life; I am a sister, but without belonging to a congregation. All the traumas I experienced prevented me from living in a religious community for psychological reasons.”

The “Rebirth” project has so far sent thousands of tesserae, or mosaic tiles, to survivors of abuse around the world to allow them to inscribe a message on the back. Others have been sent to those advocating on behalf of survivors or offering help and rehabilitation through counseling, legal services or telling their stories.

As they are returned to Sister Samuelle, she and other nuns incorporate them into the mosaic’s design. The tesserae are inscribed in languages like Vietnamese or Italian and may end up in a fragment of “Rebirth” exhibited in Belgium, Great Britain, Quebec or Togo. The overall mosaic is due to be completed by early summer.

It will then be divided into 200 pieces — “breaking the silence” — that will then be sent to exhibition locations associated with Father Rupnik’s work and other venues suggested by survivors. A QR code will allow viewers to see the complete work and locate each fragment at its final destination.

The mosaic is part of a multidisciplinary project coming to fruition under Delcourt’s guidance. The project also includes a feature documentary film, “The Tesserae Symphony,” directed by Delcourt, as well as a specially commissioned music score composed by Baptiste Capitanio, and a book, Behind the Tesserae, that will accompany the film’s release.

Delcourt, a 35-year-old acclaimed screenwriter, producer and film director, is co-founder of the annual Festival Plurielles, which celebrates women and inclusion in contemporary cinema. In July 2023, he was introduced to Sister Samuelle by a colleague who “knew I liked my films to focus on women and empowerment,” Delcourt said.

“I went to her Atelier and the first thing I saw was her artwork, and I fell in love with it. Then we sat down and started to talk. I had read about her in the newspapers but it’s not the same when someone tells you their story of abuse face to face.”

Over a period of a year and a half they remained in contact, during which time Delcourt continued his other film work and also made contact with other nuns and ex-religious who had experienced abuse.

Delcourt’s film is not an investigation into clerical abusers; rather, it recounts the coming to fruition of the “very first major art project about abuse and survivors reclaiming their voices through art.” The film includes the stories of a number of nuns who were abused.

So far, over half the “Rebirth” mosaic has been created, measuring more than 82 square feet.

“The pieces get bigger through the evolution of the mosaic in the same way as a victim gets stronger,” said Delcourt. “At the same time, the mosaic is becoming more colorful as it evolves so it is visually like a movement towards rebirth. With more color, there is more joy.”

Delcourt hopes he can interest Pope Leo XIV in this initiative so as to open up the possibility of sending fragments from the completed mosaic to countries where abuse remains shrouded in silence. The filmmaker also has a fundraising campaign to help defray the project costs, which he personally has covered up to now.

Delcourt’s team started working for free because they loved the project and wanted the victims to be able to speak their truth, he said.

“They have contributed to something for free to allow people who have been injured and who have been silenced for centuries to finally speak their truth. It is important for the nuns to know that they are loved, they are seen and they are listened to.”

This story was originally published by Global Sisters Report, a project of National Catholic Reporter, and is distributed through a partnership with OSV News. Sarah Mac Donald writes for Global Sisters Report from Dublin.

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