Little Rock, USA - Six Roman Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be possessed by the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock said Wednesday.
Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert, the diocese administrator, said he notified the nuns Tuesday night after they refused to recant the teachings of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.
The Vatican has declared all members of the Army of Mary excommunicated. Hebert said the excommunication was the first in the diocese's 165-year history.
"It is a painfully historic moment for this church," Hebert said.
The six nuns are associated with the Good Shepherd Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs. Sister Mary Theresa Dionne, one of the excommunicated nuns, said the six will still live at the convent property, which they own.
"We are at peace, and we know that for us we are doing the right thing," the 82-year-old nun said.
"We pray that the church will open their eyes before it is too late," she said. "This is God's work through Mary, the blessed mother, and we're doing what we're asked to do."
At a news conference, Hebert said the nuns "became entranced and deluded with a doctrine that is heretical." He said church officials removed the Holy Eucharist, which Catholics revere as the body of Christ, from the monastery Tuesday night.
Hebert said the sect's members believed that its 86-year-old founder, Marie Paule Giguere, was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary and that God spoke directly through her.
Excommunication bars the nuns from participating in the church liturgy and receiving the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, and other sacraments.
The diocese said the action was taken after the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration dated July 11 that the Army of Mary's teachings were heretical and automatically excommunicated any who embraced the doctrine.
According to the Catholic News Service, the Army of Mary was founded in Quebec in 1971 by Giguere, who said she was receiving visions from God.
Dionne said she did not know if Giguere was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary but said she believed God communicated through the sect's founder.
A spokesman for the Army of Mary called the excommunication of the nuns and the other members of the sect an injustice.
Father Eric Roy said Giguere had not claimed to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and the Quebec woman, he said, "receives graces" from the Virgin Mary and God.