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Nuns excommunicated for involvement with heretical group

Posted By reynor | Filed Under News & Current Events 

By Malea Hargett  |   9/28/2007  |   Catholic News Service

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (CNS) - Six sisters from the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs were excommunicated by the Catholic Church for their involvement in a schismatic association based in Quebec.

The excommunicated sisters have been longtime members of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary. They joined the association between 20 and 30 years ago and adopted the teachings of its founder, Marie-Paul Giguere, who believes she is the reincarnation of Mary.

The association is no longer considered a Catholic organization because of its false teachings on the Trinity and Mary, a Vatican official said.

“The Army of Mary has clearly and publicly become a schismatic community and, as such, a non-Catholic association. Its particular teachings are false and its activities are not able to be frequented nor supported by Catholics,” according to a formal declaration written July 11 by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The congregation released the declaration Sept. 12 and Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert, Little Rock’s diocesan administrator, learned of the decision Sept. 17. The Little Rock Diocese has been without a bishop since Bishop J. Peter Sartain was installed as bishop of Joliet, Ill., in June 2006.

On Sept. 18, Msgr. Hebert visited with the sisters and their chaplain, Father Erik Pohlmeier, who is also pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Hot Springs. After reading the declaration, Msgr. Hebert gave the eight sisters in attendance one week to prayerfully consider their decision between the Army of Mary and full communion with the Catholic Church.

He returned to the monastery the night of Sept. 25 and accepted the decision of six of the women religious to leave the church. Two of the other sisters are living in a nursing home and could not “knowingly and deliberately” choose to remain with the Army of Mary, according to Msgr. Hebert. One of the sisters is about 90 years old and is the order’s oldest member.

“It is a painfully historic moment in this church,” Msgr. Hebert said at a press conference Sept. 26 at St. John Center in Little Rock. “These are my friends. I have known them my whole life.”

Church officials in Canada, Rome and Little Rock have talked with the association’s priests, sisters and lay members for many years about their teachings, and association members have failed to recant any errors. This summer, Father Jean-Pierre Mastropietro, an association priest, invalidly ordained six men in Canada.

Bishop Sartain had been in dialogue with the sisters from 2001 to 2006 about their involvement in the Army of Mary and urged them to stop promoting the association among the laity.

Three of the six sisters who chose to continue their membership in the association are siblings: Sisters Theresa Marie Lalancette, the superior, Mary Anne Lalancette and Mary Gerard Lalancette. They came to Arkansas from Quebec more than 50 years ago.

The other three are: Sister Mary Thomas O’Keefe, who is director of the order’s day-care center and the only American-born sister to be excommunicated; and Sisters Marietta Fecteau and Mary Theresa Dionne, assistant superior, who were both born in Canada.

Two other nuns at the convent, who are originally from Vietnam, were not associated with the Army of Mary and will be moving to another convent.

During the press conference, Msgr. Hebert said the sisters’ decisions mean the monastery will no longer be recognized by the diocese.

The priest, who was the order’s chaplain in 2005, said he had personally witnessed the sisters’ beliefs.

“From my childhood I have known them. They are good, good women who love God and have served the community beautifully,” he said. “They have served the poor, outcasts, abused women, children who could not afford to be educated. They have done all this over the years because they love God.

“But somewhere along the line they fell into this Army of Mary and became entranced and deluded with this doctrine that is heretical,” he said.

In recent years, the sisters have been running a highly regarded day-care center for low-income families. Their monastery grounds also housed a perpetual adoration chapel and youth center which will now be relocated.

The Hot Springs monastery opened in 1908, when five French-Canadians arrived at the request of the bishop. They operated a girls’ boarding school, trade school and laundry for 58 years. They also ran a school for children in prekindergarten through sixth grade until 2001.

Msgr. Hebert said he hopes Catholics in the diocese will pray for the women to reconcile with the Catholic Church.

“Christ never turns his back on anyone and neither do we,” he said.

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