Sister act: A battle of faith and fortune as nuns take on Vatican

One afternoon this past summer, a car sped out of the gates of a convent on the outskirts of a sleepy village in northern Spain and kept going until it reached another convent 85 miles away.

Behind the wheel was a nun. In the passenger's seat was another nun. They sprinted in the white Nissan along a country road lined with sunflower fields and wooden telegraph poles -- desperate to save the way of life of their order, the Poor Clares of Belorado, which has been around since 1358, and to retain control of their three convents.

The Vatican had excommunicated the sisters, and a local archbishop had threatened them with eviction because they had broken with the Roman Catholic Church. And though the Poor Clares of Belorado own two of the buildings they live in and had recently signed an agreement to buy a third, the Vatican had appointed a local archbishop to administer their properties and finances.

The frenzied car trip came after the nuns heard that the archbishop was planning to seize spare keys from janitors and change the locks on two of the convents. "They drove like fury," said Sister María Belén de la Trinidad, 51.

By the time the two nuns reached the convent called the Derio, the lock on the front door had been changed and the other doors bolted from the inside. The nuns found an open back door, sneaked in and regained access.

Belén and several other nuns are now effectively squatters. They are cloistered inside the two convents, known as the Orduña and the Belorado. The Derio convent has been empty since the sisters moved out following years of what they describe as persecution by "the devil."

The unusual dispute, now tangled in a Spanish court, has involved a search warrant for a mysterious gun -- plus demons, debts, a mortgage and a manifesto in which the nuns denounced the Catholic Church. The saga has gripped local residents and called into question who actually controls the convents: the sisters or the Vatican?

"They have taken our bank accounts and want to take our properties, land and donations, too," said Belén, who entered the order of the Poor Clares at Belorado in 1999. "It's very hard. But we have to fight."

The Vatican did not respond to requests for comment. Natxo de Gamón, director of communications for the archbishop of Burgos, disputed the nuns' claims that they are the rightful custodians of the convents and contested many of their recollections of events.

Secluded, most nuns, including Mother Isabel de la Trinidad, the abbess of the Belorado order, could not be reached or declined to comment. Belén and Sister Paloma Clara María de Jesús agreed to talk to The New York Times and described themselves as spokeswomen for the excommunicated nuns.

Dressed in their habits, they responded to questions through a grille that transects the Belorado convent's reception parlor. They explained how, until recently, they had always observed their vows of obedience. Their break with hierarchy, they say, was sparked by a lack of support during a prolonged period of financial and spiritual hardship.

"The Poor Clares of Belorado have lived here for 700 years," Belén said. In recent years, they've remedied crumbling conditions and survived, in their view, demonic possessions. So no matter what the pope might say, the sisters intend to stay where they are.

The 'Devil' and Derio

According to the nuns, their problems began about 13 years ago. At that time, the Belorado nuns were well-respected in the area and by the church. They were known for their industriousness: They had set up a lucrative online chocolate truffle workshop at the Belorado convent, selling gift-wrapped sweets to customers as far away as Japan. Proceeds had been used at the turn of the century to finance the restoration of cells on Belorado's first floor, in a state of disrepair after decades of neglect.

Nearby, in 2011, a handful of elderly nuns were struggling in the smaller, lesser-known Derio convent. The Most Rev. Mario Iceta, now the archbishop of Burgos, asked the Belorado nuns to incorporate Derio within the Belorado order and help their less fortunate peers, Belén recalled.

The idea was that the nuns could turn the Derio -- a convent built in the 20th century in a stunning natural enclave -- into a spiritual hub, offering board and lodging to religious tourists and attracting generous donations. Isabel dispatched some of the younger nuns, but on arrival at Derio, they found damp walls and rooms infested with insects.

The young sisters sent to the Derio had misgivings from the outset. In a written statement to the Times, the nuns said, "There was something strange in the place, something unsettling."

They set to work, drawing on funds from the prosperous Belorado convent and hiring builders to overhaul Derio's church. They installed heating under the floor of the church and fixed up rooms in a separate outbuilding that dates to the 17th century.

But by 2017, Derio had failed to attract worshippers -- and the donations -- they had hoped for. The Belorado convent was financially drained, and the nuns who had been sent to Derio were physically and mentally exhausted.

According to Paloma, 47, they began to fall sick. Squabbles broke out. At night, she said, they heard inexplicable sounds -- objects being dragged across the roof, babies crying, dismal laughter, footsteps coming and going. Door handles turned with an invisible force. Lights went on and off. Items, such as scissors, moved across tables on their own accord. The nuns were convinced evil was at work.

"When you have come face to face with the devil, you know who you are dealing with," said Paloma. "I was very afraid."

The priest at Derio did not provide adequate spiritual guidance, Paloma said. "He celebrated terrible modernist Masses," she said. He gave sermons on "ecology and climate change," rather than focusing on "saving souls," she said.

Belén said exorcisms were attempted in 2018; de Gamón said he personally had no knowledge of any exorcisms.

The strange happenings continued, she said, but the nuns continued to try to save the Derio. They found financial reprieve when the local town council granted them permission to rent out the convent's 17th-century outbuilding as a six-bedroom holiday home for tourists. Before long, they had a steady flow of paying guests.

"Things were going really well," Paloma said. "We nearly always had a rating of 9 out of 10 on Booking.com."

Then the pandemic hit. Everything closed down. In October 2020, the nuns abandoned the Derio convent. "The preternatural experiences we sustained over time made us make the decision to leave, after consulting three exorcists," they claim in their written statement.

Out of money and increasingly at odds with the Vatican, Isabel and her nuns took out a mortgage of 720,000 euros (more than $750,000) on the Derio convent and put it on the market. They used 100,000 euros of the loan for a down payment on an empty medieval property 60 miles north of Belorado -- the Orduña convent, which was being sold by another nun community, the Poor Clares of Vitoria. Although convents in Spain belong to the nuns, any sales require authorization from the Vatican, according to de Gamón.

"The Holy See has the last word," de Gamón said. The Orduña transaction was approved, and the nuns signed a good-faith agreement: The Belorado nuns would make regular payments to the Vitoria nuns until the total value of 1.2 million euros (about $1.3 million) was reached.

The nuns began to recover from their illnesses. Orduña has a vegetable garden and a farmyard, which they tended. Within months, the nuns had used the remaining mortgage money to patch the leaky roof, install solar panels and build a bakery, where they made treats to sell at local markets.

But with an increase in the global price of cocoa, their truffle business was foundering, and the profits from their cakes, fritters and pies sold at local markets was all the income they had. "Priests have salaries, but nuns do not. Nuns need to work," said Paloma. "Our way of life is work."

Struggling to keep up with mortgage payments and their commitments to the Poor Clares of Vitoria, they put hope in selling the Derio convent. In late 2023, when a prospective buyer finally showed an interest, they say, they asked the Vatican to authorize the sale. The request went unanswered, according to Belén.

The sisters made one last attempt to improve their finances by negotiating the transfer of ownership of Orduña to a benefactor, whose identity they declined to disclose to the Times. Their proposal was rejected by the local archbishop.

De Gamón said local church officials found the nuns' claims that they had potential suitors for a Derio purchase and an Orduña transfer to be dubious. In fact, "we have a suspicion that there was no buyer" for the Derio and that the Orduña benefactor was "not Catholic."

The nuns had hit a financial wall. When the Vatican assigned the archbishop to handle their finances, "a huge economic black hole," which ran into tens of thousands of euros, was discovered, de Gamón said.

In May, the Poor Clares of Vitoria, who say they have received no payments for the Orduña, demanded it be returned to them. The Belorado nuns, however, refused to sign the cancellation of the good-faith agreement, claiming they had spent a significant amount fixing up a derelict property. "We couldn't sign the cancellation of the contract and lose everything," said Sister María Sión de la Trinidad, 39, a Belorado nun who attended a negotiation meeting.

Days later, the Belorado nuns published their manifesto.

The Nuns Won't Run or Repent

Sixteen nuns renounced the Catholic Church and accused Pope Francis of "usurping the Holy See." They pledged their allegiance instead to a traditionalist Catholic movement called Sedevacantism, which rejects modernism and claims that all popes since Pius XII, who died in 1958, are illegitimate. The forces aligned against them, they wrote, "cannot do anything against the soul."

As the nuns doubled down this summer, they were criticized and mocked in local media. Articles circulated that they had been brainwashed by a fascist priest who had been excommunicated in 2019 and is an open admirer of Spain's former dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco. Belén told the Times that they had turned to him for spiritual counsel in the weeks leading up to their break from the church, but they have since distanced themselves because he is too extreme. "He wanted us to pray on our knees," she said.

Reports about the nuns' excess spending on luxury items, such as silk sheets and cured hams, also appeared in local media. (Belén and Paloma deny making such expenditures.)

The order was also dealing with defections. One of the nuns broke from the rebellion, telling a local newspaper that she "had to leave, to avoid being a part of that cult." A local judge signed a warrant to check the Belorado convent for a gun rumored to be kept by Isabel in her cell. (The Times viewed the warrant.) The Civil Guard police force declined to respond to multiple requests for comment, but Belén told the Times that the only weapon found was an ancient air rifle that was too rusty to load.

In June, the remaining 15 nuns failed to appear at a meeting before a church tribunal, so the Vatican excommunicated 10 of them, including Isabel, Paloma and Belén.

The five oldest nuns were spared punishment, deemed too cognitively impaired to have signed the manifesto, according to de Gamón. "Their family members have told us they want to remain within the Catholic church," he said.

The senior nuns live in the Belorado with Isabel, Paloma, Belén and three other expellees. Two other excommunicated nuns stay at the Orduña.

Florentino Alaez, a lawyer who is representing the nuns, believes they have a case to stay put. While individual nuns must renounce all earthly possessions, the real estate they live in is often owned by the community the nuns comprise, according to Spanish civil law. The Belorado Convent, for example, has been inscribed in Spain's Land Registry as belonging to the Poor Clares of Belorado since 1969.

Despite no longer being recognized by the Vatican, the rebel sisters still form a religious community, according to Alaez. "The church has no power over a monastic community that declares itself non-Catholic," he said. "It's as if a Jewish rabbi tried to govern a community of Buddhists or Muslims."

De Gamón said the five elderly nuns who avoided excommunication are now the only legitimate Belorado Poor Clares, and so the properties belong to them, not to any of the expelled nuns. If the Vatican were to sever ties with the senior sisters, ownership of the properties would pass to the larger Spanish Federation of Poor Clares.

For now, the archbishop of Burgos has filed an official eviction action in court, claiming the nuns "no longer have legal title to inhabit the buildings belonging to the monasteries they occupied."

It may be months, even years, before a ruling is reached in court, according to Alaez, the lawyer. In the meantime, the sisters intend to set up a company that will enable them to sell their products using new bank accounts.

These days, they receive the sacraments from a Sedevacantist bishop, Monsignor Rodrigo Henrique Ribeiro da Silva, who the Archdiocese of Burgos says is not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. Da Silva openly calls Francis a "heretic" and has been accused of neo-Nazi sympathies in the Spanish press.

In an interview, he said he flew to Spain from Brazil "to care for a handful of abandoned women." The nuns have enough to eat each day, but there isn't much left to buy cocoa to make truffles, and they say they have faced harassment at local markets.

On a recent morning, Bixintxo Azkarraga, 59, was buying a loaf of bread at the Orduña village market. He has bought sweets from the nuns there in the past, but he said he wouldn't buy from them again. "One thing is buying cakes from a nun," he said. "Another thing is buying from a fascist."

The backlash has not moved most of the sisters who continue to be squatters, though two of the excommunicated nuns have broken away from them and moved out.

"We do not repent," Belén said.

De Gamón said the archbishop of Burgos does not take lightly the prospect of casting the nuns out of their homes. "We're trying to find a peaceful and dignified solution, trying to help them find a new life," he said.

The archbishop, he added, "prays for them every day."