Spanish
The Guardia Civil arrested this Thursday the abbess of the Spanish nuns excommunicated by the Church for confronting the Catholic hierarchy, after a search carried out today in the monastery where they reside for their alleged involvement in the sale of works of art belonging to the religious property.
The search took place early in the morning and ended in the afternoon with the arrest of the former abbess for embezzlement and receiving of historical pieces from the convent and their subsequent sale, in a police operation that also included the arrest of an antique dealer, sources from the investigation informed EFE.
The investigation into the alleged sale of artwork began following a complaint after various pieces were detected in the specialized antique market that could correspond to the historical heritage of the Belorado monastery (Burgos, central Spain).
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The Civil Guard confirmed that the investigation corresponds to an alleged misappropriation of goods cataloged as historical heritage in the convent that was registered this morning and indicated that they do not rule out new interventions to clarify the facts. The legal case opened following the complaint for the sale of works of art is added to the multiple cross-complaints before the courts between the former religious and the Catholic Church following their schism with the Vatican in 2024. The nuns of the order of Poor Clares broke with the ecclesiastical hierarchy after the Church prevented them from selling a monastery to buy another, placing themselves under the tutelage of Pablo de Rojas Sánchez-Franco, a Catholic excommunicated in July 2019 and founder of the sect Pía Unión de San Pablo Apóstol. In the case of the complaint related to the works of art from the Belorado monastery, it was filed by a person unrelated to the causes surrounding the convent and the excommunication of the ten schismatic nuns.
