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Sister Bernadette recalls how she once struggled to wake her pupils at the Goldenstein convent boarding school. “They would plead with me: ‘just five more minutes’ snooze, Berna’”, she chuckled. More than 50 years on, the tables have been turned, with former pupils taking it in turns to wake the three remaining nuns at the convent. “Sister Bernadette in particular likes a lie-in,” said Christina Wirtenberger, one of their carers.
Sisters Bernadette, 88, Regina, 86, and Rita, almost 82, are still recovering from the shock of having run away on 4 September from a nearby retirement home where they had been placed – they say against their will – and broken back into their former convent, the imposing Schloss Goldenstein, in Elsbethen, just outside Salzburg.
The nuns’ superior since 2022, Provost Markus Grasl, from nearby Reichersberg Abbey, has accused them of “breaking the vow of obedience” they made when they entered the order, by illegally occupying their castle home, and says they are living in “conditions too precarious” for their advanced ages. Removing them from the convent and placing them in more suitable accommodation, he says, was a necessary act of care and had been negotiated with the sisters in advance.
But the nuns dispute this and are sticking to their guns, building up an international fanclub as they do so. More than 50,000 people are now following them on social media, with followers given a stream of daily insights into the lives of the octogenarian religious rebels.
Wirtenberger, a retired advertising director nicknamed ‘Oki’, who started boarding at the school in 1970 as a 10-year-old, was at the helm of the action to rescue the nuns. When the three were placed in a care home in late 2023, they were promised it was only for a short term stay, she said. “When they were still there nearly two years later, and all of them so unhappy, our anger spurred us into action.”
With the help of a lawyer, locals, and accompanied by a handful of journalists, all of whom promised to keep the operation secret, the nuns were whisked from the care home and smuggled back into their cloister.
A locksmith was on hand to help them in, as well as an electrician and plumber who reconnected the convent to the mains.
Until their removal, Regina, known affectionately by her pupils as ‘Regi’, had been at the convent since 1959, and was also the headmistress. She taught six subjects and kept the books. Rita (‘Ritsch’), known for her effervescence and for tending the garden, initially came and went, returning permanently in 1969. Bernadette, (‘Berna’) known as the strictest, had been there the longest, for more than seven decades, first as a pupil herself, later as a teacher, whose domestic tasks included cooking and sewing.
When they joined their convent, established here almost 150 years ago, there were about 30 nuns. With no new recruits, though, the numbers dwindled, and for the past two decades, Bernadette, Rita and Regina were the only ones remaining. They believed they would be able to do so until the end of their lives.
“We had been told we had the right to stay in the convent until we died, according to the law and a contract we signed,” Sister Bernadette said. “Could we have thought we would be betrayed like this? Never. We were obedient our entire lives, but we could not bear to be away from our home which is why we came back.”
Stabilitas loci is the vow of permanence a person entering a holy order is expected to make, expressing not just a commitment to the physical location, but also lifelong spiritual dedication to the order and community. “But it cuts both ways,” Sister Regina said, pointedly.
They say that when they left the convent in 2023, having no idea they were not meant to return, they left most of their possessions behind. On returning after 20 months, they suspected the convent had been ransacked in their absence.
Among the missing items, they say, was the stair lift which had helped them reach their fourth floor living quarters.
Gone too were their recipe books, photo albums, teaching notes, orthopaedic shoes, birth and school certificates – not to mention letters and photographs from former pupils, including from the film actor Romy Schneider, who attended between 1949 and 1953. A classmate of Bernadette’s, her acting talent was nurtured by an attentive drama teacher, Sister Augustine.
A plastic bag of money kept in a wardrobe, which the nuns say they used for incidentals, has also gone, the nuns say. The bank accounts to which they once had access as a community, into which their wages had been paid, as well as Bernadette’s inheritance from her mother, are no longer accessible, they add.
The money, they and their supporters argue, could be used to pay for round-the-clock care in the convent.
The nuns’ future is unknown, even as they repeat the prayerful invocation they say has given them strength: “We are in God’s hands”. They have a network of about 200 helpers, from those providing a security detail, to others who cook their meals, as well as voluntary doctors and nurses who are offering regular medical care.
Absent as yet is a network of priests – the only volunteer is a retired 94-year-old – who could come and say regular mass, fulfilling what they say is their most urgent need: the re-establishment of a regular spiritual life. Most clergy “are too scared to stick their necks above the pulpit, lest they get into trouble with the church”, says one organiser who does not wish to be named.
Among the well-wishers was the US folk singer Elisabeth von Trapp, granddaughter of Salzburg’s most famous daughter Maria von Trapp, herself an erstwhile novice, whose story inspired The Sound of Music. “She brought roses and told us to stay brave,” said Rita.
With such attention on them, she added, they remained cautiously optimistic that Pope Leo, a fellow Augustinian, might be prepared to intervene. “He is in our prayers, at least,” Rita said.
Grasl has not responded to the nuns’ accusations in public but appointed a PR crisis manager to deal with what has quickly turned into a public relations disaster for the Catholic church in Austria. A spokesperson, Harald Schiffl, said the church had “spent years negotiating with the nuns about the terms of their departure”, before signing a contract with them.
He rejected the nuns’ claims that they had been tricked into signing anything against their will, arguing that it became clear in 2023 that conditions at the cloister were “too precarious” for the nuns to remain there.
“It is understandable that it is very, very difficult for the sisters. But sometimes in old age, one has to act out of charity and responsibility and make certain decisions on others’ behalf,” he said.
He denied that possessions had been removed, saying the rooms had “only been cleared of spoiled food and rubbish.” The nuns “should have no private possessions in that sense anyway, according to their vows. Anything they have belongs to the community,” he said, including the bank accounts, adding: “The provost is by decree responsible for the entire cloister property including all the finances.”
As Sister Rita took the Guardian around the local graveyard where nuns from the order have been buried since the 1880s, she bemoaned the removal of the flower beds that once lined the plots, which the trio had habitually tended. “I suppose they wanted to more easily be able to mow the grass,” she said. “But it’s as if they’re trying to erase all trace of us”.
