Vicar general reportedly leaves schismatic Poor Clare community amid dispute

The reported departure could mark signs of deeper fracture within the schismatic community.

Spanish media have reported that the vicar general of the schismatic Poor Clares of Belorado left the convent about a month ago, amid disagreements with the community’s superior.

According to local media, the sedevacantist self-proclaimed bishop Rodrigo Henrique Ribeiro Da Silva also left the community, and now a sedevacantist Argentinian priest has become the chaplain of the sisters.

The reported departures could mark signs of deeper fracture within the schismatic community, which announced its break from the Catholic Church in May.

Monastery of the Poor Clares in the north of Burgos, Spain. Credit: Raul GC / Shutterstock.

Spanish religious website Religion Digital reported Sept. 9 that Sister Paz, the community’s vicar general, left the convent more than a month ago. Her current whereabouts are unknown and she reportedly has not been in touch with the Archdiocese of Burgos.

Sister Paz was the second-in-command after Sister Isabel of the Trinity, the superior of the community.

Observers have speculated about the whereabouts of Sister Paz after she failed to appear in a recent interview. Sister Paz rarely spoke in the community’s interviews over the past several months, but she always appeared at the side of Sister Isabel and Sister Sion, who has become a kind of spokeswoman for the community. 

Sister Paz was also present with Sister Isabel and Sister Sion when they filed a complaint against Archbishop Mario Iceta of Burgos in the civil courts.

Sister Paz allegedly left the convent due to disagreements with the way Sister Isabel was running the convent, both in terms of management and the schism that Sister Isabel has led.

Officials with the Archdiocese of Burgos have said that they are trying to get in touch with Sister Paz and are willing to lift the excommunication against her and allow her to move to a different Claretian community. 

“We’re always open to receive her again, but leaving or returning [to the Church] is a personal decision,” a diocesan official told The Pillar.

Sister Paz is not the first member of the community to have left the convent. Sister María Amparo, one of the elder sisters of the community, left when the superior announced their intention of going into schism and is now living with a Claretian community in the city of Vitoria.

“I suffered total vigilance so I could not speak with the older sisters, they didn’t allow me to say goodbye to them,” Sister María Amparo said in an interview shortly after the schism. “I could not belong to that sect, I could not be in that environment anymore.”

Since then, the sedevacantist alleged bishop Pablo Rojas and sedevacantist alleged priest José Ceacero, who had originally instigated the break from Rome, have also parted ways with the community. Rojas accused the sisters of taking his money for legal costs and then kicking him out of the convent without repaying the money. 

Later, another sedevacantist alleged bishop, Rodrigo Henrique Ribeiro da Silva, followed suit. Ribeiro da Silva lived with the community for a few months, but left recently.

Ribeiro da Silva had been invited by Sergio Casas Silva, another sedevacantist priest who celebrated the sacraments for the sisters between Rojas’s departure and Ribeiro da Silva’s arrival. This Argentinian priest allegedly served as a mediator between the sisters and Ribeiro da Silva.

Now, according to Vida Nueva, Casas returned to the convent and is serving as the chaplain of the sisters. He is registered with the local town hall as an inhabitant of the town.

Although some originally pointed to Ribeiro da Silva’s departure as another misstep of the sisters in their attempt to secure support from sedevacantist communities, he seems to be in coordination with Casas and the Poor Clares.

Not much is known about Casas Silva, but he usually shares the saint of the day in his social media, including some canonized after the Second Vatican Council. He used to work as a professor in public schools in Argentina.

He used to be part of the Istituto Mater Boni Consilii, a sedeprivationist group. Sedeprivationists believe that the election of the current pope is valid, but that he lacks authority and capacity to teach and rule unless he retracts alleged heresies that started in the Second Vatican Council. However, Casas Silva left that group in 2022 and became a sedevacantist.

The reported disputes within the convent are the latest in a series of unusual revelations about the Poor Clares in recent months.

In May, the community declared its intention to leave the Catholic Church and place itself under the jurisdiction of a self-proclaimed bishop who was excommunicated in 2019. 

Sister Isabel of the Trinity, the superior of the community, communicated the decision in a five-page open letter, which was sent to friends and benefactors on May 13, and published on the convent’s website. 

The declaration, which includes a denunciation of Pope Francis, references a real estate dispute, complaining that the Vatican had blocked the sale of an empty monastery in Derio, owned by the community.

In the past few months, local media have reported that the sisters had embraced an apparently lavish lifestyle that led to utter economic collapse.

Recently, it was reported that the nuns owed more than 42,000 euros in unpaid invoices and almost 10,000 euros in unpaid salaries to convent staff.

The community, which sold sweets and baked goods to support itself, reportedly made a string of eccentric purchases, including high-quality jamón, laptops, cell phones, and even a fighting bull that had to be sold after it could not be tamed.