You may never have heard of Marko Rupnik until the allegations against him became public, but you have almost certainly seen his work. The same enormous eyes, crooked mouths and flattened faces appear at Lourdes, Fatima, Padre Pio’s shrine, Ta’ Pinu in Gozo and churches across the world. They appear inside the Vatican itself, most prominently in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace.
By the beginning of this century, Rupnik’s pseudo-iconography had become something close to the official visual language of institutional Catholicism. His mosaics can reportedly be found in around 200 churches and sacred spaces. The question is not merely how a man now accused by numerous women of grave abuse received so many prestigious commissions: his canonical trial is ongoing, and its outcome should not be prejudged. The prior question is simpler: how did an artist whose work is, at the very best, mediocre become so omnipresent throughout the Church?
