"Sister internet" faces up to life on the outside after expulsion from convent

The cloistered community did not look benevolently on the internet activities of a nun in a convent in Santo Domingo el Real, Toledo. María Jesús Galán, 54, overcame the resistance of some of her companions at the 14th-century convent to install a computer. With the aid of modern technology, "Sister internet," as Galán became known among her fellow nuns, digitalized all of the convent's documents but it was the creation of her own Facebook page that led to a campaign to have Galán expelled from the religious community.

Her work in cataloguing the convent's paperwork and introducing modern technology into a traditional environment earned Sister Galán a prize from the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha. But it also resulted in a backlash among her colleagues.

"They have kicked me out," wrote Galán on her contentious social networking page. "There are some Kenyans here who have made my life impossible. Jealousy has played a dirty trick on me and they have won. Today was the visit of the delegation of religious life, and together with the prioress and two other nuns they have decided that I must leave so that the Kenyans are appeased. They have no vocation, but they come here to earn money for their families."

Sister Galán did not go into detail over the exact motives for her expulsion but wrote that "everything has come to pass already and it is not worth opening up an old wound. I am at peace and do not hold any grudges." Her Facebook page on Thursday displayed a black-and-white picture of a woman crying.

However, others in the convent maintain that the real reason behind the decision to expel Sister Galán after 35 years of service to the Church lies with the discontent among the ecclesiastical hierarchy over the increasing public notoriety of a member of a religious order. The Archbishop of Toledo refused to comment on the matter, limiting himself to the observation that Galán belongs to the Dominican Order, which is run according "to its own rules."

Sister Galán's personal preferences, as listed on Facebook, include "reading, music and making friends." She has 300 friends listed on her Facebook page.

"The internet has wonderful things and, if you are a clean person, looking for work-related content or things for leisure, you can find God," Galán told Cadena SER radio on Thursday.

Galán cites the example of "looking for dictionaries and you find the webpage of the Royal Spanish Academy," and the joy of "knowing quotations from the Bible."

"I was born happy; I live a happy life and I will die happy," Galán said. "Despite being expelled from the convent by three ambitious Kenyans," she added.

She is now looking for work and pondering carrying out one of her life's ambitions: to travel to London and New York. And she has not lost her faith: "It is a change to my way of life, but it is not a tragedy. God is good and he will help me."