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The Poor Clares of Belorado, northern Spain, have launched a campaign for a new convent. Creating the website queremosunconvento.com (“we want a convent”), they are beseeching the help of the Spanish public to offer them a home in which to continue their religious life. The sisters have been formally excommunicated from the Catholic Church and evicted from their convent.
The sisters’ confrontation with the Church began in May 2024 when the community of 16 declared their separation from the post-Vatican II Catholic Church and their allegiance to sedevacantist Bishop Pablo de Rojas Sánchez-Franco. Their superior, Sister Isabel de la Trinidad, released a five-page open letter on May 13, 2024, along with an extensive 70-page “Catholic Manifesto”.
Rojas leads a group called the “Pious Union”, which has chapels and Mass centres around Spain. They hold the sedevacantist position, which maintains that there have been no valid popes since Pius XII, with some dating this further back to Pius X, owing to liturgical and theological reforms that they believe invalidated subsequent pontificates.
Rojas claims episcopal lineage according to the “Thục line”, referring to bishops consecrated by, or deriving succession from, Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục (1897–1984), the former Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam, and brother of South Vietnam’s President Ngô Đình Diệm.
In response to the sisters’ allegiance, the Archdiocese of Burgos, where the monastery is located, issued a declaration of excommunication and ordered the nuns to leave consecrated life under canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law.
The excommunication applied to only 10 of the sisters, since one had already left and five were deemed too old. However, the sisters subsequently separated themselves from Rojas. It appears that the bishop and a man associated with his movement, Francisco José Ceareo Sierra, had been staying at the monastery. Ceareo, who claims to be a priest, had become the self-appointed spokesman for the nuns. Declaring to the press that the Bishop of Burgos, Mario Iceta, is a “shameless man”, he became an antagonistic presence among the sisters.
The sisters then welcomed another sedevacantist bishop, Rodrigo da Silva, whose views had been so extreme that the now deceased former SSPX bishop and Englishman Richard Williamson had distanced himself from him in 2018. Da Silva also claims the Thục lineage. However, he too later left. According to reports, the spiritual needs of the community are now met by sedevacantist priest Jesús Casas Silva.
Prior to their split with the Catholic Church, the sisters had gained national attention for their handcrafted chocolates, especially mojito-flavoured truffles and chocolate-covered orange sticks, sold in gourmet shops and served in Michelin-starred restaurants such as San Sebastián’s Akelarre. After their break with the Church in May 2024, the sisters launched Obraetlabora SL, a company registered in December 2024. Its declared activities include chocolate and confectionery production, as well as agriculture, livestock and property rental.
In early 2025, they were reported to owe significant debts, including €18,000 for a chocolate oven and ingredients, while the archdiocese noted that they lacked funds in official convent accounts. Despite financial strain, they continue producing their chocolates under the brand “Erre que Erre”, showcased at Madrid Fusión 2025. In February 2025, three of the sisters moved to Arriondas in Asturias, renting the Hotel-Restaurant Ribera del Chicu. There they opened a cloistered restaurant, with dining service handled by volunteers or staff so that the sisters can remain enclosed.
In November 2025, controversy continued when two sisters were arrested in connection with the alleged illegal sale of artwork. A month later, four elderly sisters were “rescued” from the convent owing to concerns about their medical condition. Three of the nuns were later hospitalised following a medical check-up owing to their greatly deteriorated condition.
The launch of the campaign aims to give them a permanent home independent of the Church. The sisters state that they have been “threatened with eviction” and “been singled out, mistreated, accused and persecuted” for believing in their “own way of life”. They hope that in an increasingly depopulated Spain someone might offer them a home that “could once again have life, meaning and a future”, and they add that they do not seek privileges, “only a dignified way out of an unjust situation”.
On the website, visitors are encouraged to leave a message “if you can help these charismatic nuns”. Responses have been mixed, with some using it as an opportunity to advertise houses for sale. Others have offered help or made practical suggestions about abandoned convents. One of the more unusual comments comes from Msgr Artur Jan Sitko, vicar general in Germany for the Polish National Catholic Church. The cleric offers “a formal invitation to you to consider full communion with our Church” in order to facilitate “the establishment of a Mission in Spain”.
The next steps for the sisters are unclear, but the availability of unused convents in Spain appears relatively high. More than a hundred have closed over the last decade, leaving opportunities open for aspiring communities. However, while the nuns profess beliefs regarded as heretical by the Catholic Church, they are likely to encounter difficulties in acquiring them.
