For the sake of sorrow part 2

 Continued from previous post...

Amalfi is a coastal town and much of the architecture was built in the 12th century and beyond.  Such is the case for many of the most opulent hotels in its residence which functioned for hundreds of years as churches and buildings lived in by monastics seeking to serve the communities in which they lived.  It has become the trend for developers to buy these seaside communes and tout them as destination resorts to the worlds most wealthy.

 The European coastlands and countryside's are littered with such destination places which imbue old world charm where the natural landscape threatens to swallow whole the work of human hand.  I mean, who wouldn't want to drink wine and make love in lost corridors leading to bell towers against cool stone archways and warm soft gardens dripping with luscious roses and water fixtures?  A hot bath overlooking the sea before bed? Yes please! But, maybe that's just me!  As a professed horizontal writer myself, I would love to lie on the stone floor and watch the fire roar in my room while I put pen to paper like I do.  I imagine that the history and passions of places like that are palpable and I would love to channel into the heart and bones of them.

The point is, I get it! There is value in there and people pay top dollar to experience it.  Investors know that too!  But at what cost?

Such has been the case for the convent of Saint Claire, or at least that is what many suspect is the pointed plan for the grounds at present. The convent  is said to be valued at between 50 and 60 million dollars. 

After almost an entire millennia of service, the convent number were down to only six.  The Vatican Dicastery for consecrated life ordered the convent closed. (despite the fact that these ladies managed to pull in two hundred thousand dollars a year)

But here's where the deed gets dirty!

All of the remaining sisters had taken their vows to live and serve and die in the convent.  Their determination to live a cloistered vocation their life through was being attacked.  The city and the Mayor employed every legal angle they could to preserve the pearl of Amalfi which had always served the town, to no avail.  It was clear that somewhere in the line of authority there was money to be made and no one would come to the aide of the sisters.

So in a last ditch effort, they implored Pope Francis himself.  Possibly in an act of deep need and trust, evocative of  Saint Claire herself on the very reliance she had to her dearest Francis, the sisters, who were in rightful ownership of the the convent, signed it over to the Vatican with the understanding that they would be able to live out the vows they took for their consecrated lives.  Afterall, sister Maria Christina Fiore had just turned 97, it was not a huge ask and in the end.  The Vatican could to as it pleased once the sisters had passed and allowing them to stay would not have cost them anything, considering that they were financially independent.

As I said before, all that was needed was one signature, Pope Francis. With only one signature he could have ended it all.  But he only performed half of their request. He accepted the "gift" of the sisters.  The Vatican did take ownership of the convent but he ordered them to leave immediately.  Not only that, but to be sent to different convents.  Mind you, in monastic life this is a big deal.  These women had lived together for decades and by this time the two other nuns in the convent with sister Maria Christina were caring for her declining health.  

The Vatican ordered the most vile, separation of kinship and to disavow what they had promised long ago.  And so, the sister did what all hero's do in such grave times, they refused to leave.  Francis clapped back with the worst insult of all, Sisters Massimiliano Panza and Sister Angela Maria Punnacka, have been expelled from the convent and religious life.  They were forcibly removed from the convent by  police. Literally with no place to go after vowing a life of poverty, the sisters were taken in by a neighbor. 

I find it questionable if this was truly necessary.  It wasn't decent and certainly wasn't representative of the Franciscan spirit that once lovingly responded with lifegiving yes' from Francis to Claire on behalf of her ministry. How cruel to respond to such trust and generosity by  degrading the interior life and vocation of another. 

Ex Mayor of Ravello named Paolo Imperato, has vowed to continue the fight "to restore truth  Justice and dignity to the virtuous 'disobedience' of the sisters"

I wish this were an isolated event.  But in Tuscany, the very same underhanded workings are at play as we speak.  Those who are holding their vows the closer seem to be punished the most by a pope who seems to speak without decisiveness and act in divisiveness to his most devout clergy. There is a slow degrade of the monastic life and call to vocations from the Vatican itself, ironically by a man who has claimed the name of a saint whose life's mission was to grow religious orders and serve charitably in the world which he saw as the big soul.  I feel glad to have a platform that no one reads that I can freely say that I believe this to be the most anti Franciscan thing to have done. In the end, It may very well be as the holy scriptures say, that you will know a thing by the fruit that it bears!