The rebel nuns who left their convent behind

A group of Californian nuns left their convent and set up their own independent community in 1970. They’d been inspired by the social change they saw around them in Los Angeles in the 1960s, and the Pope's promise to modernise the Catholic Church. They wanted to stop wearing their traditional habit and abandon their set prayer times, but their conservative cardinal refused to discuss change. So three hundred of the sisters left to set up their own lay community – the Immaculate Heart Community, which is still running today.

Former Sister Lucia Van Ruiten tells Witness History about the crisis they caused in the Catholic church.

(Photo: Nuns from the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary play guitars at the Mary's Day parade, 1964. Courtesy of the Immaculate Heart Community)