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Her order owns their real estate. The deeds are in their name. They could get kicked out of the church but not off of their properties. In 25 years they will probably all be dead. They are not getting new recruits. The median age is probably over 70 years old. Simone is one of the younger members.

“Her order owns their real estate. The deeds are in their name. They could get kicked out of the church but not off of their properties.”

I’d imagine the superiors of the orders would be the only ones to have a say about those things. Since the orders are only allowed to operate with the permission of the ordinary of the diocese, I don’t see the superiors wanting to press this issue; many of their properties (and they have nice ones up along the Hudson River here) could become taxable if they aren’t being used for religious purposes.

Religious orders in the Catholic Church are a kind of Franchise under a church charter. The Dominicans and Franciscans, the original mendicant orders, were somewhat like the Methodists in the 18th Century Church of England. The Franciscans were basically a lay organization that observed poverty like the more rebellious groups such as the Waldensians but remained loyal to the Church as did John Wesley. The Church is organizationally more flexible than a state Church like the Church of England. So we have the very different Society of Jesus in the 16th Century and the even more radical Opus Dei --an organization that chills the heart of liberal Catholics. Nuns, of course, are also “consecrated persons,” and people like them have been around since Our Lord’s time. They don’t get much print in the New Testament, but of course they are there. The Church provided for widows in a society that did not, which is why Paul was able to urge them not to remarry for the sake of Christ. It took awhile before they were formed into communities. Anyway, the nuns are incorporated and are largely independent of the local bishop.