Reuters
 
Kazimierz Dolny, Oct 11: Polish police evicted several dozen black-clad nuns from a convent in southern Poland they had occupied for more than two years in defiance of a Vatican order. 

Armed police officers jumped over the fence guarding the convent, in this picturesque town in eastern Poland, because the nuns barred the gate and locked themselves inside the building where they held hands and sang religious songs, police videotapes showed. The police did not use force.

"It is a sad case for the (Catholic) church and for those who disobeyed the church and ended in such a situation," Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz told PAP news agency.

He said the nuns could come back to the Catholic community if they repented and obeyed the rules.

The 64 sisters of the Family of Bethany rebelled against their order when the Vatican decided to replace their mother superior, who had said she had visions and was in direct contact with God.

The nuns have defied an eviction order for two years and had to get by without electricity and water since April when they were cut off by the authorities. They survived thanks to local sympathisers who brought them food and supplies.

The deposed mother superior and an ex-Franciscan friar, who had accompanied the nuns, were arrested by the police in connection with the occupation.