they had rebelled against the Church – Il Tempo

The Poor Clares of the Belorado monastery were excommunicated after declaring they had “voluntarily separated” from the Catholic Church. This was announced in a note from the archbishop of Burgos, Mario Iceta. The excommunication concerns ten nuns of the community, excluding five elderly nuns and three others who had left the monastery in recent days. The archbishop’s decision came after the expiry of the ultimatum given to the Poor Clares to present themselves at the ecclesiastical tribunal and explain their position. The nuns did not appear in the courtroom, stating that they did not recognize the authority of the Church of Rome and reiterated their desire to separate in a note published on the Instagram profile they opened.

With the excommunication the Poor Clares would now have to leave the monastery. It all started in mid-May when the abbess of the community, Isabel de la Trinidad, made public a 70-page Catholic Manifesto in which she communicated the nuns’ decision to leave the Catholic Church and place themselves under the tutelage of Pablo de Rojas Sanchez-Franco, excommunicated in July 2019 and founder of the “Pious Union of Saint Paul the Apostle”, a sect that does not recognize the Second Vatican Council and believes that the last “true pope” was Pius XII. From that moment the crisis with the Church opened. The archbishop of Burgos, Mario Iceta, was appointed pontifical commissioner and tasked by the Holy See with managing the case.

In recent days he had asked the Poor Clares to hand over the keys to the monastery and had given them until Friday to present themselves at the ecclesiastical tribunal to explain their position. However, the nuns refused. According to what leaked to the Spanish media, rather than a decision due to faith, the separation from the Church of Rome could be motivated by a controversy over a real estate operation, namely the purchase of the monastery of Orduña, in the Basque Country, managed by the same community of nuns. Not only that, doubts were also raised about the role played by the abbess of the community, whose mandate expired on May 29, in convincing the other sisters.

The abbess denied the accusations by publishing some videos on Instagram in which the Poor Clares can be seen smiling, in harmony and in the company of their relatives. The excommunication of the abbess nuns came in the aftermath of the accusation of schism against Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò, former nuncio to the USA, summoned by the former Holy Office on charges of schism. Yesterday in a note the monsignor specified that he «has no intention of subjecting myself to a sham trial in which those who should judge me impartially to defend Catholic orthodoxy are at the same time those whom I accuse of heresy, betrayal and abuse of power”.