Nuns Evicted

Alfredo Rodriguez thanks Sister Angela Escalera for helping with the paperwork to allow his wife in Mexico to join him in the U.S. Escalera and the two other nuns at the Sisters of Bethany convent help poor, mostly immigrant residents is east Santa Barbara. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Sept. 16, 2014 5:56 AM PT

Three nuns in Santa Barbara has been given notice that their building will be sold and they will be evicted by the end of the year to help pay for the priest sex abuse settlements in the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese. The nuns, who work with undocumented immigrants and the poor, have had the building for more than 50 years.

Gonzalez, left, helps Escalera, 69, up a flight of stairs at the convent, which was built by Sisters of Bethany in 1952. The archdiocese gave the nuns four months to move out before the building is sold. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Sister Consuelo Cardenas, left, and Gonzalez attend evening Mass in the chapel at the Sisters of Bethany convent. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has said it will sell up to 50 non-parish properties to help pay the priest sexual abuse settlement. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Gonzalez, left, and Escalera read the letter from the archdiocese telling them they were being evicted. “We’re just so hurt by this,” said Escalera, who has lived in the convent since 1964. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Gonzalez gets ready to prepare dinner for herself and the two other nuns at the Sisters of Bethany’s convent. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Escalera, 69, who is retired and partly disabled, had hoped to live out her days in the convent in east Santa Barbara -- until the archdiocese decided to sell it. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

The Sisters of Bethany convent is next to Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Barbara. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Escalera says the most hurtful part of the proposed sale of her convent is that the proceeds will be used to pay for the misdeeds of pedophile priests. (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

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Nuns Evicted

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