Rebel Nuns Evicted From Polish Convent
Pastor Dale Morgan
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Oct 10, 2:57 PM EDT
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Rebel Nuns Evicted From Polish Convent*
By MARCIN ZOLTOWSKI
Associated Press Writer
KAZIMIERZ DOLNY, Poland (AP) -- Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns
Wednesday from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after
defying a Vatican order to replace their mother superior, a charismatic
leader who had so-called religious visions of the Virgin Mary.
The defeated nuns walked out in their black habits - some carrying
guitars, drums and tambourines - after a locksmith opened the gate to
the walled compound and police in riot gear rushed in and arrested the
mother superior. A former Franciscan friar who had locked himself away
with the nuns also was taken into custody.
Several nuns, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s, screamed at
police, calling them "servants of Satan," as they were escorted out and
into waiting buses.
The women took over the convent in Kazmierz Dolny in eastern Poland in
rebellion against a Vatican order in 2005 to replace Jadwiga Ligocka as
mother superior.
"They were disobedient," said Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, a spokesman for the
Lublin diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican formally
expelled the women from their Sisters of Bethany order last year, but
has revealed almost nothing about the dispute.
About 150 police in riot gear went into the compound to find the ex-nuns
defiantly singing religious songs and playing instruments, Puzewicz said.
Lublin Archbishop Jozef Zycinski called the police operation a last
resort meant to help the ex-nuns.
"Today's police intervention was a sort of act of desperate aid for
people who for the past two years have lived in very unusual conditions,
in a closed environment, in seclusion, in uncertainty, where various
forms of thought take shape," the PAP news agency quoted Zycinski as saying.
"One could clearly see that tension and aggression during today's
intervention."
Several hours into the operation, the women began leaving. Among them
were Russian and Belarusian citizens who had been living in Poland
illegally, police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said. They will likely be
deported, he said.
Puzewicz said the ex-nuns appeared to have been "manipulated"
psychologically. He did not say who he thought was influencing them, but
said the former Franciscan friar, Roman Komaryczko, had a "negative
influence" on Mother Jadwiga.
Komaryczko was charged with disturbing the peace and prosecutors planned
to bring the same charge against Mother Jadwiga, said Robert Bednarczyk,
of the Lublin prosecutors' office.
During questioning, the ex-friar "didn't respond to questions in any
topical, concrete or logical way or to the charges," Bednarczyk said.
"He also didn't give any logical answer to his place of residence, but
instead made some religious references."
Mother Jadwiga is a charismatic figure who claimed to have religious
visions and was reportedly attempting to transform the convent into a
contemplative order.
The Lublin diocese hinted at that portrait in a statement on its Web
site that said: "Mother Jadwiga's private revelations, and the fact that
she made it a guideline to stick by them, caused unease to the
Congregation."
The Vatican, which has authority over all convents, has traditionally
been wary of people claiming visions, in part fearing others could be
drawn in.
When the Vatican formally expelled the nuns from their order in 2006,
the women refused to leave the convent and cut themselves off from the
outside world.
The church eventually sought legal action to remove them, and a court in
nearby Pulawy ordered their eviction. The convent's electricity was cut
off earlier this year, but sympathetic local residents secretly funneled
them food at night.
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Associated Press writers Vanessa Gera and Ryan Lucas contributed to this
report from Warsaw.