76 Franciscan nuns test positive at German monastery

BERLIN » Seventy-six Catholic nuns have tested positive for COVID-19 after an outbreak at a Franciscan convent in northwestern Germany, church authorities said Tuesday.

Another 85 nuns received negative test results at the monastery in Thuine, not far from the Dutch border, the convent’s Mother Superior told The Associated Press.

“We are grateful that so far nobody is in the hospital,” Sister Maria Cordis Reiker said. Local health authorities put the the entire monastery under quarantine late last week after the first cases of coronavirus were discovered there. Most Catholic nuns in Germany are elderly women because convents have had difficulties for decades recruiting young women for their cause. Reiker said they were still waiting for the test results of the 160 non-clerical employees of the monastery, including nurses working at the monastery’s old people’s home, and others working at the monastery’s kitchen and wash house.