Riccardo Cascioli e Luisella Scrosati
The convent of Montefiolo, in Sabina, where the Pope's former Vicar for Rome has built a luxurious apartment, will become the new headquarters of the former Jesuits of the Aletti Centre. With the relative expulsion of the nuns who live there. Our report.
With the collaboration of Patricia Gooding Williams
"The nuns have gone out, there's nobody here at the moment, I'm just passing through and can't let you in," answers a woman's voice over the intercom. "But can't we just visit the church and the grounds, we’ve heard it's beautiful?" we ask. "No, there's no one here. But we know there are priests... Silence, the conversation abruptly ends. It's Thursday 27 February, and we're standing outside the large metal gate of the convent of the Benedictine Sisters of Priscilla in Montefiolo, in the municipality of Casperia, a small village in the Sabina hills, in the province of Rieti.
We came here because we had been told that Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, the former Jesuit expelled from the Order and accused of the serious sexual abuse of women and nuns, has been residing here for several weeks. Not only that, but he is together with other former Jesuits from the Aletti Centre, once the headquarters of Rupnik and his followers until the abuse scandal broke.
Montefiolo is just a hilltop and the only building is the ancient, majestic convent, which originally belonged to the Capuchin Friars.
It was bought and restored in 1935 by Monsignor Giulio Belvederi. The then Secretary of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology opened the monastery to a group of women who wished to lead a religious life and who, in 1936, founded the Benedictine Oblates Regular of Priscilla, later to join the Benedictine Congregation. But now, shrouded in a mysterious conspiracy, it is passing into the hands of the small group of former Jesuits, favoured by its location. In fact, surrounded by a high wall and a wood, which separates it from the main road, it is an perfect residence for those who wish to live in
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