Dilip Kuner
A FIERY group of rebel Poor Clare sisters booted out of the Catholic Church are turning their 15th?century convent into a battleground – vowing to fight eviction with rosaries raised and habits intact.
The eight ex?nuns from the Order of Saint Clare, excommunicated in June 2024 for schism, strutted defiantly into a Burgos courtroom on July?29 with their unlikely PR man – a sharp?suited layman named Francisco Canals – in tow.
Their sin? Splitting from Rome in May?2024 over blocked property sales and doctrinal conflict. They claimed the Vatican prevented them from selling a convent they owned to fund another purchase. Then they placed themselves under the spiritual jurisdiction of Pablo de Rojas Sanchez?Franco, an excommunicated priest who presents himself as a bishop from the Pious Union of Saint Paul the Apostle.
Pablo de Rojas was excommunicated in 2019 by then?Bishop Mario Iceta of Bilbao, and is ardently sedevacantist – denying the legitimacy of all popes since Pius?XIIwho died in 1958. Dubbed by critics as a fringe sect leader, de Rojas styles himself with grandiose titles like “imperial duke” and “prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire” and has been accused of staging rituals and consecrations via dubious lines linked to Palmar de Troya.
Now, his devout flock are holed up in the Santa Clara convent in Belorado, insisting it’s rightfully theirs.
“We’re not just some rogue nuns – we’re a legal entity,” thundered Sister Paloma outside court, clutching her crucifix. “And the convent is ours!”
But the Archbishop of Burgos isn’t having it. Mario Iceta, now pontifical commissioner for Belorado, says their excommunication stripped them of their canonical status – and with it any right to remain or wear the habit. Officially, ten of the sisters were declared excommunicated in June 2024, while the older quietly abstained from the schismatic decision
“We ask that they be removed – they no longer have legal claim,” argued the archbishopric’s lawyer, Natxo de Gamon, in court.
Supporters call the sisters modern martyrs; detractors call them habit-wearing squatters. Their lawyer, Florentino Alaez, says they’ll appeal all the way to Spain’s top courts if needed, asserting the right to religious freedom.
Click here to read more Spain News from The Olive Press.
