I now have a much better understanding of this Katy Perry-vs-the nuns drama. In 2015, Katy Perry went through what she thought were the right legal channels to purchase the historic property of the Order of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary in LA. The archdiocese agreed to Katy’s terms and sold her the property for $15 million. The problem was that the nuns had the receipts that they actually owned the property and they could sell it to whomever they wanted, and they didn’t want to sell it to Katy, they wanted to sell it to a real estate developer for pennies on the dollar. For years, Katy, the nuns and the archdiocese have been locked in legal battles. Then, more than a week ago, the main nun collapsed and died in court. Most people thought this prolonged legal battle was over. And it is, although one of the nuns is still alive and speaking to the media about how she’s broke and she can’t afford health care. She’s also vowing to keep fighting.

Struggling with ill-health, including breast cancer, Sister Rita Callanan looks into her pantry for scraps of food and sees, yet again, only cereal. Her bank balance is zero, her healthcare cheque has bounced on more than one occasion and she’s not sure who’s going to foot the bill for her next round of cancer treatment. Now 80 years old, she scratches her head in bemusement as to how this has all happened. A few years ago, she had hundreds of thousands in the bank and was a paper millionaire.

As one of the few remaining sisters alive, who belong to the historic Order of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Los Angeles, her future was secure. Their historic convent sits in the uber trendy Los Angeles suburb of Los Feliz and is today worth in excess of £10 million. That is until Katy Perry came along. The 32-year-old singer tried to buy it without the nuns’ permission. She agreed a deal with the Royal Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles (RCA), headed by Archbishop Jose Gomez, who claims the convent is under its ownership and sold it to Perry for £10 million in July 2015. But two nuns took exception to this. Sister Callanan and her fellow Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, 89 – a combined age of 169 years – claimed that it’s been the Order’s property for 45 years and it’s their right to sell it. They found a buyer in property developer Dana Hollister.

On Friday, in the latest round of the epic court battle, Sister Holzmann tragically collapsed and died in the Los Angeles courtroom. Now only Sister Callanan remains in the fight against Perry and the RCA. Sister Callanan has vowed to keep on fighting and asked the public to help the cause, setting up a GoFundMe page to help with their legal costs. She says: ‘On March 9th, 2018 we tragically lost Sister Catherine Rose, my beloved fellow IHM Sister and original organizer of this GoFundMe campaign. She was my cherished partner in this ongoing legal battle to keep our convent. It is now more important than ever to continue this fight and for our cause to prevail.’

Sister Callanan says: ‘All we are asking is to sell our own property, keep our own money so we can take care of ourselves until the last person dies, then the money and property can go to the archbishop. There’s not many more years, give me a break. He’s supposed to be a chief shepherd.’

In 2005, Archbishop was supposedly given the go-ahead by the Vatican to take control of the convent although this point is now being disputed. A ‘pontifical commissary’ was put in place – like a conservator of the estate – who assumes responsibility for the sisters. But Sister Callanan says: ‘He claimed that Rome gave him permission, now we did a lot of research and Rome has done research, and these claims, this letter to give him authority was not from Rome, but a friend of the archbishop’s.

According to Sister Callanan, he started ‘sending us to retirement homes, one by one, separately, so we weren’t a unit.’ She says all their bank accounts were closed – they each had upwards of £215,000 in their accounts. ‘All these years of my religious life, I would never have expected to be fighting an archbishop to keep our own property and money, so we can care for ourselves. We don’t want the archbishop handling our money.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I’d suggest you go and read the full Daily Mail interview because OMG what’s happening to these remaining nuns is so shady, and very little of it is Katy Perry’s fault. Katy Perry’s boobs are a smokescreen for a very shady battle in which the archbishop seemingly took advantage of a group of very old nuns, all of whom have serious health problems. All they wanted to do was live out the rest of their days on this property which they believed they owned, or at the very least, they should be consulted about who bought the property. Sister Callanan isn’t blaming Katy Perry – the sister directs her ire at the archbishop who seems hellbent on destroying these old nuns’ lives. That being said… I’m pretty sure that there’s no longer any legal fight left to wage over the historic property. At this point, the nuns are just trying to live out their final days with some dignity and comfort.

Photos courtesy of ABC and WENN.