This is horrifying news! What happened to the "NewSpringtime", to the wave of vocations that VII was going to bring? Convents are closing all over the world (except Traditional ones).
From Aleteia
By Mathilde De Robien
The six remaining cloistered Carmelite nuns in Jonquières, France, are closing their historic community, ending a 400-year legacy of prayer ... and martyrdom.It's a sad consequence of the lack of religious vocations. Bishop Jacques Benoit-Gonnin of Beauvais, Noyon, and Senlis (France) announced on April 21 the closure of the Compiègne Carmelite community, located some six miles from the original site, in Jonquières, since 1992.
"As age advances, numbers decrease, vocations are slow in coming, and external reinforcements are impossible to find, our Carmelite Sisters of Compiègne have decided to close their community," the bishop explained. Six nuns currently remain at the monastery. They will leave gradually over the coming months.
Famous martyrs
The Carmel of the Annunciation, founded in Compiègne in 1641 and following the Rule of St. Teresa of Avila, was the 53rd foundation in France at the time. It had a unique impact, giving the Church 16 holy martyrs.
These 16 nuns were expelled from their monastery during the French Revolution and guillotined in Paris on July 17, 1794, out of hatred for the faith.
For over 18 months leading up to their death, they made a daily act of consecration, offering their lives to God so that peace might be restored to the Church and the state.
They are known world-wide thanks largely to Georges Bernanos’ play and Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogue of the Carmelites.
Pope Francis approved their equipollent canonization on December 18, 2024. On May 8 of last year (the day Pope Leo was being elected), a thanksgiving celebration for their canonization took place in Compiègne.
Later, on September 13, Mass was celebrated at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, followed by a procession retracing the route of the carts that carried them to the guillotine. A plaque where they were martyred is visible today.
A brief attempt to restore the Compiègne Carmel in 1835 was short-lived. Finally, on January 18, 1867, a few nuns from the Carmel in Troyes settled on Saint-Lazare Street in Compiègne. The monastery's construction took 16 years, lasting from 1872 until the chapel's inauguration in 1888. By 1992, with the building aging, the nuns sold the monastery and built a new one in Jonquières, a small village about six miles from Compiègne.
An enduring hope
Father Yann Deswarte served as vicar of the Holy Carmelites of Compiègne parish for seven years before leaving last September to join the Society of St. John Vianney in Ars. He shared both his sadness over the nuns' departure and his lasting hope.
"It's sad because it's the end of an era, but I find it beautiful that the Lord allowed the canonization of the Carmelites before they leave. It's a form of fulfillment, and the Lord will bear fruit," he noted.
Father Deswarte celebrated Mass at the Carmel once a week and regularly entrusted the parish's prayer intentions to the community.
"I truly have this conviction that the Carmelites carried our parish in prayer and that everything we managed to do bore fruit thanks to the Carmelites' prayer. There’s real sadness and at the same time hope, because from now on the Carmelite saints will take over!" he added.
Bishop Benoit-Gonnin also highlighted the community's immense fruitfulness. "Those who joined them in Jonquières, those who visited them or walked alongside them, know the fruits borne by their silent witness, their faithful prayer, and their hearts open to the intentions entrusted to them," he pointed out. "Their presence and their witness will continue to inspire many."
A message of peace
"The Carmelites' message is a message of peace," noted Baudouin Gérard, president of the Friends of the Carmelite Saints of Compiègne. "The association will try to do everything to perpetuate this message." This message has resonated particularly strongly since the canonization of the 16 martyrs.
"To foster devotion, we organized pilgrimages and conferences with the Carmel, and entire buses came from Paris. All of this was a huge surge of faith and a path of peace," Gérard explained. "Sister Alix-Anne, who was the community's prioress, always said that it was absolutely necessary for the 16 Carmelites to be canonized, because the message '[may] peace be restored to the Church and the state' is more relevant than ever today," the association's president added.
A memorial dedicated to the 16 martyred Carmelites is located in Jonquières, drawing many pilgrims eager to learn more about the saints. It includes the church crypt where relics are kept. There’s also a memorial room displaying manuscripts and objects the martyr-nuns used in their prayer life.
What is Gérard's hope for the future? "The association would of course like not to deconsecrate the site, and to keep the crypt, which attracts many people. These are questions that will be debated with the Carmelite Order, the Federation of Carmelites, and the diocese," he explained.
"I personally think that this place could host another religious community or a faith-based retirement home, and who knows? Another Carmel could branch out and settle there in the coming years."
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