Sisters Rita (proper), 81, Regina (left), 86, and Bernadette (middle), 88, on the convent chapel of the Goldenstein fortress south of Salzburg, Austria, on Sept. 20, 2025. Supporters of the three nuns flocked to the convent in a present of solidarity.
Joe Klamar/AFP through Getty Photographs
cover caption
toggle caption
Joe Klamar/AFP through Getty Photographs
BERLIN – Three octogenarian Austrian nuns who captured headlines final yr after they staged an escape from their care residence and broke again into their outdated convent are in Rome for the very first time.
Sisters Rita, Bernadette and Regina joined tens of hundreds of different guests at St. Peter’s Sq. for a basic viewers with Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday morning.
The sisters’ aide Christina Wirtenberger — who has identified them since she was a pupil within the convent’s adjoining faculty — informed NPR that they boarded a aircraft for Rome “in secret” amid an ongoing dispute with the native provost, Markus Grasl.
In a press release despatched to NPR by the provost’s spokesperson Harald Schiffl, Grasl expressed concern about what gave the impression to be the sisters’ sudden disappearance on Tuesday night time and bafflement over why they stored their flight to Rome underneath wraps.
The sisters have been at odds with the provost — who can be their superior — since returning to their convent final September in Schloss Goldenstein close to Salzburg.
Grasl accused the sisters of breaking their vow of obedience after they left the care residence, arguing that the situations within the convent are unsuitable for them. The sisters accuse the provost of placing them in a care residence in opposition to their will.
Each events appealed to the Vatican late final yr to decide over the sisters’ proper to stay. Sisters Bernadette, Rita and Regina additionally requested that the provost be relieved of his duties to them.
Munich-based canon legislation scholar Wolfgang Rothe — who has been advising the nuns — informed NPR that the Vatican Dicastery liable for non secular orders has determined within the sisters’ favor and that they will stay on the convent. The Vatican has not but responded to NPR’s request for remark.
Rothe additionally informed NPR that the Vatican appointed Abbot Jakob Auer as an assistant to Provost Grasl to maintain the sisters’ wants — an appointment confirmed by Schiffl, Grasl’s spokesperson.
Within the assertion Schiffl despatched to NPR on Wednesday, he quotes Auer as saying, “We were on the verge of finalizing an agreement regarding the sisters’ continued stay at Schloss Goldenstein” and that since Tuesday, he has been “unable to reach the sisters” and “fear[s] that they are being deliberately kept away from me,” including that “we are deeply concerned about the sisters’ well-being.”
A lot to their shock, the sisters turned novice social media influencers final yr with an Instagram following of almost 300,000 — the form of publicity Wirtenberger informed NPR final October performed an important position in making certain the provost didn’t attempt to take away them from the convent. The Instagram account — initially known as nonnen_goldenstein — detailed what appeared just like the sisters’ excessive jinks and capers, together with Sister Rita taking boxing classes or sliding down the convent staircase on a mattress.
Following what are reported to be inside disputes among the many volunteers serving to the sisters, the proprietor of the preliminary Instagram account was ordered by an Austrian court docket final month to cease posting within the title of the nuns. The sisters say the volunteer who ran the account didn’t search their specific permission previous to posting.
Since then, that account — now named church_fluencer — has printed posts questioning the welfare of the sisters, even suggesting that they’ve been taken to Rome in opposition to their will.
Wirtenberger, who stays on the nuns’ sides, has launched a brand new Instagram account known as realnonnengoldenstein.
Conflicting posts concerning the sisters and accusations from numerous sides spotlight how susceptible the aged might be when depending on the assistance of others. However {a photograph} despatched to NPR from Rome and footage posted to the brand new Instagram account present sisters Rita, Regina and Bernadette sitting in wheelchairs in St. Peter’s Sq., grinning from ear to ear as they await the papal blessing.
