Archbishop of Los Angeles Evicts Elderly Nuns

Thanks to Gerald Augustinus at The Cafeteria is Closed for this heads-up from The Los Angeles Times:

L.A. Archdiocese plans to sell the Santa Barbara site to help pay its priest abuse settlement. The nuns will likely have to leave the city where they've served the poor.

By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2007

SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.

Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.

Nuns EvictedBut she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.

The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.

Oh, yes, "The Spirit of Vatican II" strikes again.