Katy Perry v. nuns: singer fights to buy convent

Katy Perry may seem like a dark horse in a legal battle with 80-something-year-old nuns, but the pop superstar and former Christian rock singer is in the midst of a fight over the rights to buy a convent in Los Angeles.

Perry seeks to buy the several acre hilltop property from the Los Angeles Archdiocese, but the nuns say not so fast. A group of the sisters, part of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary order, bought the property in the 1970s and allege that they, not the archdiocese, have the right to sell it.

“We bought it. It belongs to us. We have the deed and they took our corporation and they took our bank accounts, they took our income,” Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, 87, told the BBC. “They’ve cut everything and yet they say they’re taking care of us.”

The archdiocese says its contract to sell the approximately 60-bedroom, 21-bathroom convent to Perry for $14.5 million in cash is legally binding. None of the nuns disputing the sale lived on the property, and they had already sold it last year to a restaurateur, Dana Hollister, who reportedly sought to turn it into a boutique hotel, for $15.5 million. That sale was invalidated by a court that ruled the archdiocese did in fact have rights, over the nuns’ objections, to sell it.

The case is still being fought in the courts, with the nuns alleging that the archdiocese misrepresented Latin documents regarding the sale from the Vatican, which must approve the sale of church property.

Not every nun in the order disputed the archbishop’s right to sell the convent.

“Before he sold the property he asked our permission and most of us agreed to sell the property to Katy Perry,” Sister Marie Victoriano, 89, said.

Holzman said, “They’ve never given us a penny,” in reference to the archdiocese, but chief communications officer Carolina Guevara rejects the assertion the nuns will be negatively impacted by the sale of the property to Perry.

“I can assure you we are completely committed, the archdiocese and specifically the archbishop, has made a personal promise that all of the sisters will be taken care of for the rest of their lives whether there’s a sale or not,” Guevara said. “The archdiocese is committed to protecting and caring for the sisters.”

This story was originally published May 17, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Katy Perry v. nuns: singer fights to buy convent."