Sr Isabel of the Trinity, who was prioress of the Poor Clares of Belorado until Archbishop Mario Iceta ruled they were in schism, said that by September “unless God prevents this” the community’s two monasteries would be ruined “or confiscated or sold to the banks”.
In a video posted online on 10 August, she said the Spanish tax office had recently blocked the nuns’ bank account.
In May, after a failed property deal, the community announced that they had left the “Conciliar Church” and no longer accepted the spiritual authority of Pope Francis or any pope after Pius XII.
In June, 10 of the nuns sent a fax to Archbishop Iceta, confirming they had left the Church “freely, voluntarily, unanimously and in a spirit of joy”.
The Vatican asked Iceta to lead a committee overseeing the convent’s administration, which soon reported receiving unpaid bills for convent expenses “exceeding €35,000”.
Sr Isabel alleged last week the committee had only paid the convent’s lighting bills, despite Iceta assuring the nuns they would “lack for nothing”.
“They give us nothing for food, for the elderly nuns or the others. We are depending on donations,” she said. “Every day, we continue to receive news of defaulting payments.”
Furthermore, she alleged the committee had “suspended all payments” including for the convents’ petrol needs, car insurance, telephones and internet, as well as for the sugar, flour and milk the nuns’ required to bake the cakes that previously provided a source of income.
Sr Isabel’s 12-minute video does not mention the convent’s campaign to fundraise €20,000. Only 63 donors had pledged €2,700 by 7 August when the campaign ended.
The community has since taken a 33-year-old Brazilian sedevacantist as its latest spiritual leader. Rodrigo Henrique Ribeiro da Silva was ordained in 2017 by the British Lefebvrist Richard Williamson.
A year later, he was expelled from the Society of St Pius X, reportedly for denying the Holocaust. In 2021, he was “consecrated” as bishop by another sedevacantist bishop, Daniel Dolan. Da Silva has been photographed next to images of Adolf Hitler.
“We have crossed the Atlantic to help the nuns in the best way possible,” a spokesman for da Silva informed the Spanish television programme Todo es Mentira (“It’s All A Lie”) last week.
Da Silva replaces Pablo de Rojas-Sánchez, the self-styled “bishop” whom the community invited to act as their spiritual leader but later expelled from their convent.