SANTA BARBARA, Calif. For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order’s small convent on this city’s east side, helping the area’s many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs.
Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.
But she and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church’s recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex-abuse settlement.
The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 and noted that an earlier departure “would be acceptable as well.” “We’re just so hurt by this,” Escalera, the order’s local superior, said this week. “And what hurts the most is what the money will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?”
Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the archdiocese, said Thursday that the decision to sell the property was difficult but necessary.
In July, the archdiocese announced a record $660 million settlement with the victims of hundreds of clergy abuse cases. At least $250 million and up to $373 million of the total will be paid directly by the archdiocese, with the rest coming from insurers and various religious orders.
“The pain is being spread around,” Tamberg said. “We’re losing our headquarters here, and none of the employees got a pay raise this year. This is just part of making it right with the victims, and we all have to share in the process even though none of us the nuns, myself harmed anybody. All of us as a church have to pay for the sins of a few people.”
But in Santa Barbara, where the beige stucco convent and its veiled nuns in navy blue habits have long been fixtures, the news was trickling through the community this week, sparking concern and some anger.
On Wednesday morning, as Escalera spoke with visitors, a woman knocked at the door. Carmen Torres, who lives nearby and attends the Catholic church adjacent to the convent, said she had just heard the news.
“I didn’t want you to feel abandoned,” Torres told the nun, adding that she was hoping to raise money for the sisters by renting a small home she owns in Texas. “We need to see what we can do to help you.”
Torres called the decision to sell the convent unjust, given the nuns’ history of care and service to their low-income community. Other supporters spoke even more strongly.
“It’s outrageous,” said Sally Sanchez, a community activist who added that she had known Escalera since 1964, when each had just arrived in Santa Barbara from the Los Angeles area. “Why should (the nuns) pay for the sins of the morons who did this? Why can’t they sell something else?”
The Santa Barbara County assessor’s office lists the property’s value at $97,746, although it seems likely to sell for more.
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