From the monastery to the courts. The earthquake, triggered this week by pastry nuns who decided to break ties with the Church of Rome, will feel its aftershocks in a place that has little to do with masses, prayers and monastery desserts: the courtyards. And until recently there were mutual demands among the nuns who were sisters of the order of the Poor Clares. At the center of the debate is nothing about faith and doctrine. The key is an old Burgos monastery.

We explain ourselves.

What happened? That a group of nuns from Belorado and Orduña caused an earthquake in the Spanish Church. Someone powerful enough to sneak them in busy time It goes viral on television and even provokes angry reactions from the archbishop of Burgos and the bishop of Vitoria. Reason? It’s simple: A few days ago, the nuns, a group of 16 Poor Clares led by Sister Isabel de la Trinidad, by then famous for their truffles, published a message announcing that they were breaking ties with the Church of Rome and the Pope.

The movement was affected both in content and form. The Poor Clares condemned being victims of “persecution” and said the conciliatory Church had “pledged to its wheels”. And if all that wasn’t enough, they also included a manifesto confirming that Pius was the last valid Pope. He came under the tutelage of Pablo de Rojas, who had been excommunicated five years earlier, and was the leader of the San Pablo Apóstol Religious Association.

A matter of doctrine… and much more. But there is much more than doctrinal differences at the heart of the debate. There were real estate properties. More precisely, two monasteries. This was noticed at the beginning of the controversy by both the rebellious nuns and the Archdiocese of Burgos and the Diocese of Vitoria.

In general terms, the situation is as follows: The Poor Clare nuns in Belorado signed a purchase and sale agreement with their sisters from Vitoria in 2020 to take over the Orduña Convent, which has been on sale for 18 years. All for a generous sum: 1.2 million euros. At the time of the agreement, 100,000 euros were contributed and from then on it was agreed that the Belorado nuns would pay 75,000 euros every six months. The first is in November 2022.

First scenario change. This amount was never paid. The reason may be the other key to the fight. The nuns of Belorado were the owners of another convent in Derio, whose tenants had moved to the new convent in Orduña. So the Poor Clares in rebellion asked for permission to sell it. It is clear from the diocese’s statement that their goal is to use the money from this operation to pay for their new home in Orduña.

The problem is that this license to sell (which Sister Isabel condemns with obvious discomfort) lasts forever. “We came to the point of being blocked from Rome because they did not want to give us the license to sell the monastery,” the abbess laments, “so we lost a necessary opportunity to sell, pay off our debt and get rid of the excess business and problems that this property brought us.”

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Second scenario change. Things got even more complicated in March. Mother Superior Isabel claimed that, despite everything, there was a “benefactor” willing to buy the Orduña Monastery, which was the 2020 agreement, and resell it to the nuns once they managed to get rid of the Derio convent and earn the necessary money. . The Curia didn’t like the idea very much.

This was mainly because Sister Isabel was determined to keep the identity of the mysterious “benefactor” secret, and the Church suspected that he might be an “outsider” to the entity, like the excommunicated bishop Pablo de Rojas. Thus, the Clares of Poor Vitoria, who agreed in the fall of 2020 to sell the monastery to their sisters in Belorado for 1.2 million, backed down.

Third turn of the script. On May 7, the people of Vitoria called their sister in Belorado to a notary public to cancel the purchase and sale agreement signed almost four years ago. The problem is that the latter came to the office with their own “legal trump card”: instead of signing, they presented another document that would increase the cost of depriving themselves of the Orduña monastery.

The diocese explains that the rebel Poor Clares, in particular, are demanding 1.6 million in compensation for the work their congregation carried out at the convent of Orduña during this time. As if that wasn’t enough, they also added a 30% rate for “damage and losses”. The matter was concluded in “judicial cases”.

And… the final twist? This was the situation on May 7. Today, nine days later, things have become even more complicated: after the statement issued by the Poor Clares of Belorado and the ensuing uproar, their fellow Vitorians decided to take action. And toughen your stance. They will file a lawsuit to annul the sale of the Orduña convent to the Belorado nuns. And they decided to do this with a very simple claim: They cannot “take the goods” of the Catholic Church because they have converted to a “sect”.

Sound He states that the community in the capital Alava, which will continue to be the legal owner of the religious building, has already received the services of a law firm and will file a lawsuit within a few days. According to the newspaper, in their favor, the promissory note signed at that time would have included a clause regarding termination of the contract in case of non-payment, and the pastry brothers would have had pending payments.

“They entered the cult”. During their visit to the law office, the Vitoria nuns were accompanied by a priest from their Diocese who spoke very harshly about the rebellious nuns of Belorado: “They have gone to a sect, they cannot take their property.” “If this had not happened, Vitoria’s sisters would never have asked for a penny from them because they were both Poor Clares, but they are no longer so,” the diocese spokesman stressed.

Add and continue discussions. As if the situation wasn’t already complicated in itself, in the last few hours both the rebel nuns and the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) have taken steps to further blur the situation.

The former took to Instagram to post videos in which they assured, among other things, that they would “explain” their position, ask for patience, and have no intention of abandoning the Church. “Those who are worried about this should be patient. We are fine. Our reality is not being kidnapped.” The EEC also spoke to the Poor Clare nuns in Belorado, who were dissatisfied with what was going on, to ask them to “freely express their position.”

Pictures | Xataka (Zarateman) via Midjourney and Wikipedia

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