A trio of elderly nuns in Austria who fled a care home to return to their longtime convent are at odds with the provost in charge after he demanded they leave social media.
The three nuns lived at Kloster Goldenstein in Elsbethen, close to Austria’s western border with Germany, until December 2023. Sister Bernadette, 88, first entered the convent in 1948 as a teen, Sister Regina, 86, entered in 1958, and Sister Rita entered in 1962, according to the BBC.
They were then moved out of the convent and into a care home, and their religious community was dissolved in 2024. The nuns were unhappy at the care home and moved back into the convent in September with the help of former students and a locksmith in September, the BBC reported.
Their superior Provost Markus Grasl from Reichersberg Abbey in Reichersberg, about 62 miles north of Elsbethen, opposed the nuns’ return to the convent, calling their move “completely incomprehensible,” according to the BBC. On Friday, he said he would allow them to stay at the convent under certain conditions.
Mr. Grasl told the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper that so long as their health holds up, they will be allowed to stay. However, the nuns will have to return to monastic life, cease their activities on social media, and stop taking legal action against him or other superiors.
The nuns have almost 100,000 followers on Instagram and several thousand on Facebook, according to the BBC.
Reinhard Bruzek, the nuns’ lawyer, told regional news blog InfoMediaWorx that the proposal was a “gag order.” The nuns also told the blog that they did not want a priest from Reichersberg Abbey appointed over them, saying “we have a very good confessor and we won’t let him be taken away from us,” as translated from German.
Sister Bernadette also told the Salzburger Nachrichten that “we were promised that we could stay here until the end of our lives. The provost has broken that promise, and that has to be said,” as translated from German. Sister Rita said the nuns rejected the agreement.
Mr. Grasl told Salzburger Nachrichten that “the sisters will have to explain in Rome whether they still want to continue their monastic life,” as translated from German.
