A Spanish archbishop said he “thought it was fake news” when first told about the renegade nuns.
NEWSWEEK
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.
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.”
