Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps

[IwantToRetire]

Three Austrian nuns in their 80s have run away from the retirement home where they were placed and gone back to their former convent.

Sister Bernadette, 88, Sister Regina, 86, and Sister Rita, 82, are the last three nuns at the Kloster Goldenstein convent in Elsbethen, just outside Salzburg.

They regained access with the help of former students and a locksmith.

Church authorities are not happy - but the nuns are.

"I am so pleased to be home," Sister Rita said. "I was always homesick at the care home. I am so happy and thankful to be back."

The trio say they were taken out of the convent against their will in December 2023.

continues at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y8r2gk0vyo

The Nun's Liberation Movement !!

Update - April 2026

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/03/nuns-who-broke-back-into-their-austrian-convent-are-step-closer-to-being-able-to-stay

Seems promising.

I hope the Pope does right by them; he seems a decent and compassionate man.

Had forgotten there is a new Pope.

Might be easier for him to "break the rules".

I was just glad to know they were still there and had survived the winter!

I hope the church decision makers are not stringing this out forever in the hope that nature takes over the life span of the nuns and the church gets its castle back to make some money.

I am also hoping that Pope Leo can get stuck in and find a way to knock a few heads together and acknowledge the agency of these women in deciding on their futures.

I mean - they are all going to die before long, so that will happen one way or another.

I'm not sure what other scenario you are envisioning.

That they are able to live the last years of their life confident that they have been give the right to continue to live in the building of their former convent.

At the moment it is still hanging over them that they might be forcible evicted. And made to live in some "care home" which they dont want to do.

It really makes no sense to deliberately make things take longer to wait for them to die so as not to have to give a final answer, when it will take the same amount of time for them to die if they stay with an answer. That would be a weird approach.

Related - I listened to the radio play based on a true story of Nuns in Belgium who sold their Covent and moved to the South of France.

Well there's more to it than that. Script by Amelia Bullmore

In case anyone is interested its available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002tzfc