Elderly nuns escape nursing home in Austria and find way back to convent

CNA Deutsch, Sep 18, 2025 / 16:33 pm (CNA).

Since early September, three elderly nuns have been making international headlines and gaining followers on Instagram after fleeing their nursing home and returning to their convent in Austria.

Sister Bernadette, 88; Sister Regina, 86; and Sister Rita, 81, left their Caritas nursing home and, with the help of a locksmith, returned to their former convent, Goldenstein, near Salzburg, Austria, according to the BBC.

Now, the Augustinian nuns are flatly refusing to return to the nursing home, from which they have officially withdrawn.

According to the Vatican’s Cor Orans regulations, communities with fewer than five nuns can no longer elect their own superior. In 2022, by order of the Vatican, the three nuns had to transfer ownership of the Goldenstein convent equally to the Archdiocese of Salzburg and to Reichersberg Abbey.

The transfer contract granted the nuns a lifelong right of residence, but only “as long as it was justifiable from the perspective of health and spiritual life.” After several hospitalizations of the elderly nuns, Rector Markus Grasl ordered them to be transferred to the Schloss Kahlsperg nursing home in Hallein in December 2023.

Grasl justified the decision to relocate them based on the sisters’ precarious health and the structural condition of the convent. He determined that independent living in Goldenstein was no longer sustainable due to the nuns’ age as well as to the demands of community life and the condition of the building.

According to officials, the decision to move the sisters was made out of concern for them and after intensive discussions with all parties involved, including the nuns.

The three women vehemently denied this, however. They said they felt “displaced” and were expelled against their will from the home they had lived in for decades.

The nuns have accused Grasl of pressuring them to sign a contract without properly informing them of its terms. They also complained that approximately 50,000 euros in cash (almost $59,000) had disappeared and that they no longer have access to their own accounts.

Church authorities flatly rejected these accusations. “For several years, intensive discussions were held with the sisters, in which the Archdiocese of Salzburg also participated, to consider and plan the future of the monastery. One of the sisters’ greatest concerns was the continuity of the local secondary school. This wish was fulfilled. The move to the nursing home became inevitable due to the precarious situation,” Grasl said in a statement in August.

The Archdiocese of Salzburg and Reichersberg Abbey jointly maintain that all decisions were made in coordination with the sisters themselves, the episcopal vicar responsible for the religious, and the superior of the Augustinian nuns.

About 30 former students and other supporters helped the nuns return to the convent and are now providing them with food, medical care, and media support. The nuns now have electricity and water back in most rooms.

The three nuns have used modern media to promote their cause. On Instagram, under the account “nonnen_goldenstein,” (Goldstein Nuns) they have more than 18,000 followers and share videos of themselves eating, praying, and cleaning together.

Church authorities remain concerned and perplexed.

The superior of the Federation of the Canonesses of St. Augustine in Germany, Sister Beate Brandt, condemned the disobedience of the Goldenstein nuns: “I cannot tolerate this,” she said.

“There is a certain feeling of helplessness,” Grasl’s spokesperson declared. The rector continues to appeal for the sisters’ return to the nursing home, where they will receive “comprehensive care, nursing, and medical attention of the highest quality.”

He assured them that “no coercive measures” are currently being planned.

This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by ACI Prensa/CNA.