Evicted Nuns Find Shelter with Episcopal Order of Women Religious; Will Be Able to Continue Their Work in Santa Barbara
California Catholic Daily
November 19, 2007
http://calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=4d287509-c252-43bd-b6d3-abf40c5a63e1
Three nuns to whom the Los Angeles archdiocese sent an eviction notice last June have found a temporary home — with an order of Episcopal religious sisters.
In June, the Catholic Sisters of Bethany received a letter from the archdiocese telling them to vacate by Dec. 31 – sooner if possible — the Santa Barbara convent their
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congregation has occupied since 1952. Though the house was built for the Sisters of Bethany, it remained archdiocesan property. The archdiocese wants the money from the sale of the house to help cover the $660-million settlement it reached with victims of clergy molestation.
Three Sisters of Bethany — Angela Escalera, 69, Consuelo Cardenas, 55, and Margarita Antonia Gonzalez, 49 — have worked from the house with poor and undocumented immigrants on Santa Barbara's east side. Since they received their notice of eviction, the sisters have been looking for another place to live.
Hearing of their plight, the Sisters of the Holy Nativity, an Episcopal Church order based in Wisconsin but with a retreat house in Santa Barbara, offered to give the sisters temporary lodging. The Sisters of Bethany will be able to stay at the Episcopal order's St. Mary's Retreat House, near Mission Santa Barbara, for as long as they need to.
When news of the Sisters of Bethany's eviction hit the news in September, they received numerous offers of help. Recently, however, the Sisters openly broke with Denise D'Sant Angelo, a Santa Barbara businesswoman, who led the Save Our Sisters of Bethany support group that has raised money for the sisters.
The sisters' lawyer, Mack Staton, told the Nov. 15 Los Angeles Times that the sisters broke with D'Sant Angelo because they did not like all her fundraising ideas. D'Sant Angelo raised about $20,000 for the sisters, but she has yet to return about $3,700 unaccounted for out of that.
D'Sant Angelo told the Times that she did not owe the sisters any money; the unaccounted funds are the result of some donors who asked for refunds. The Save Our Sisters of Bethany Committee, said D'Sant Angelo, will continue to function. "This was not just designed to help the sisters in Santa Barbara," she told the Times. "We intend to help other Sisters of Bethany."
Citing federal court records, a Nov. 14 MSNBC report said D'Sant Angelo has filed ten times for bankruptcy in 13 years – six of the filings have been in Santa Barbara. She has also used about seven different last names over the years, including Lucich, Fennell and Birchfield.
As for the Episcopal sisters who have opened their retreat house to the Sisters of Bethany, they are hoping that reporters and the public stay away from St. Mary's. Sister Abigail, in charge of the house, told the Times, "This is place of quiet and prayer."
Sister Abigail gave a simple reason why she decided to help the Catholic nuns. "They are my sisters," she told the Times.
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