Renegade Ex-Nuns Raise Hell In Poland

This post, written by Zuzu, originally appeared on Feministe

You gotta love any story that involves the phrase "rebellious ex-nuns." And it's kind of a doozy, too.

KAZIMIERZ DOLNY, Poland (AP) -- Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns Wednesday from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after defying a Vatican order to replace their mother superior, a charismatic leader who had religious visions.

The defeated nuns walked out in their black habits -- some carrying guitars, drums and tambourines -- after a locksmith opened the gate to the walled compound and police in riot gear rushed in and arrested the mother superior. A former Franciscan friar who had locked himself away with the nuns also was taken into custody.

Several nuns, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s, screamed at police, calling them ''servants of Satan," as they were escorted out and into waiting buses.

The women took over the convent in Kazmierz Dolny in eastern Poland in rebellion against a Vatican order in 2005 to replace Jadwiga Ligocka as mother superior.

"They were disobedient," said Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, a spokesman for the Lublin diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican formally expelled the women from their Sisters of Bethany order last year, but has revealed almost nothing about the dispute.