A Spanish court has rejected an appeal by a group of excommunicated nuns who joined a sect and were ordered to leave their convent, confirming their eviction, an archbishopric said on Friday.
Nine nuns from the Order of Saint Clare split from the Vatican in May 2024 over a property dispute and doctrinal wrangling, an affair that has fascinated Spain.
The Archbishopric of Burgos asked them to leave their 15th-century convent in the northern town of Belorado, saying they had no legal right to remain there after the excommunication.
But the nuns stayed put after a court ordered them out last year. They said the convent belonged to them and appealed their eviction.
The Archbishopric of Burgos said in a statement that it had received the judgement of a higher court that dismissed the nuns’ argument.
The property is a “legal entity subject to Canon Law”, while “the ownership of the convent’s assets belongs to the legal entity, and not to the nuns that inhabit it”, the statement said, quoting the ruling.
As for the former abbess, her decision to separate the convent from the Catholic Church along with the nuns “is clearly beyond her authority”, according to the ruling.
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“Having established the defendants’ lack of ownership rights over the Convent of Saint Clare in Belorado, they must be evicted,” the statement said.
The women have declared allegiance to an excommunicated ultra-conservative priest who has rejected the validity of all popes since the death of Pius XII in 1958. The Church considers the movement a sect.
