Poland:Polish police stormed a convent yesterday and arrested more than 60 rebel nuns and a monk who had refused to leave the building after being expelled from their order by the Vatican.
About 65 nuns barricaded themselves inside the convent at Kazimierz Dolny in eastern Poland two years ago in protest at the Vatican's decision to replace their mother superior, Jadwiga Ligocka, over unspecified allegations about her personal conduct.
Yesterday morning about 150 police officers surged into the building, to a chorus of abuse from many of the nuns, who until the raid had been singing hymns and playing music. By mid-afternoon, all the women had been led out of the convent, many clutching musical instruments and bags of belongings, and taken away from the scene on buses.
One woman was taken away in an ambulance accompanied by an eight-month-old baby, whose presence was not explained by a police spokesman. He did say that a former Franciscan monk, Roman Komaryczko, was being questioned along with Ligocka, and that police had discovered five illegal female residents from Russia and Belarus in the convent.
"They were disobedient," said church spokesman Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, referring to nuns whom the Vatican expelled from their Congregation of the Sisters of the Family of Bethany order for ignoring its decision to replace Ligocka as mother superior.
Fr Puzewicz said the nuns were acting "as if they are being manipulated" psychologically, and that former friar Komaryczko had a "negative influence" on Ligocka.
The church has revealed few details of the rebellion and the conduct of Ligocka, but the local diocese said on its website that "Mother Jadwiga's private revelations, and the fact that she made it a guideline to stick by them, caused unease to the congregation".
