Nun Sues Vatican Over Unjust Dismissal: A Legal Controversy

Unjust dismissal, employee sues the company. Nothing particularly unusual, if only the protagonist of the judicial affair were not a nun and the employer the Vatican. The protagonist of this affair is Mother Marie Ferréol.

Nun Fired, The Story

 

The decision to treat the case as a common dismissal and bring it before a civil court has raised considerable controversy in France, where Mother Marie Ferréol was removed after 34 years from a monastery in Brittany, and caused a strong reaction from the Holy See, which sent a 'note verbale' to the Paris embassy at the Vatican, expressing concern over the 'risk of a serious violation of the fundamental rights to religious freedom and freedom of association of Catholic faithful'. Mother Marie Ferréol, 57 years old, was expelled from the Institute of the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit in Berné in October 2020, after 34 years spent in the community, following an 'apostolic visit' conducted by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet. The former nun, in the world Sabine de la Valette, since she was expelled, lives thanks to the 'Revenu de Solidarité Active', a minimum income guaranteed by the French state.

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The court condemned the community's trade union association to pay 33,622 euros for duty of care and ordered compensation of 182,400 euros for material damages plus 10,000 euros for moral damages, involving also Cardinal Ouellet and two other apostolic visitors. According to the lawyer of the Vatican inspectors, the court 'did not have the right to access the file on canonical matters', since it is an internal matter to the Church.

THE VATICAN'S RESPONSE

The Holy See, through the spokesman Matteo Bruni, emphasized that it had learned of the 'alleged sentence' only through the press and reiterated that Cardinal Ouellet 'did not receive any decree of citation'. Bruni confirmed that 'the Cardinal did indeed conduct an apostolic visit to the Institute of the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Spirit, in compliance with a pontifical mandate' and that 'at the conclusion of such visit, a series of canonical measures were adopted against Ms. Sabine de la Valette, including her dismissal from the religious Institute'. The note verbale from the Holy See concludes by underlining that 'a possible sentence of the Court of Lorient could raise not only relevant issues concerning immunity but, if it had pronounced on the internal discipline and membership of a religious institute, could have led to a serious violation of the fundamental rights to religious freedom and freedom of association of Catholic faithful'.