Sixteen Spanish nuns have announced they are breaking from the Catholic Church and instead placing themselves under the authority of Pablo de Rojas Sánchez-Franco, a self-styled bishop who was excommunicated in 2019.
The 16 Poor Clare sisters, part of the Franciscan Order of Saint Clare, were based in the dioceses of Burgos and Vitoria in northern Spain.
The schism comes against the backdrop of conservative anger over the leadership of Pope Francis. In February, 90 Catholic clergymen and scholars wrote a letter to “all Cardinals and Bishops of the Catholic Church,” urging them to oppose a document approved by the pontiff that allowed priests to bless same-sex couples. Earlier this month, Francis angered many American conservatives by describing efforts to prevent migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border as “madness.”
The 16 nuns, led by Sister Isabel of the Trinity, announced their break from Catholic authorities in a five-page open letter published on their convent’s website.
In the letter, Sister Isabel said Catholics have had to endure “the silence of our pastors,” who “left their sheep alone and helpless to face the wolves.”
Referring to the papacy, she added: “From the Throne of Peter we have been receiving contradiction, confusion and doublespeak, ambiguity, lack of clear doctrine, which is all the more necessary in stormy times, to hold the rudder more firmly.
“During this time the sisters, each in her own style, way and rhythm, have been contemplating a question, a doubt about the one who steers the Barque of Peter, and his closest collaborators. A doubt which, in time, became SCANDAL.”
