'Poor' Nuns Own Millions of Dollars in Land

Back in February, Patch told you about a group of nuns on the west side who needed upwards of $40,000 to repair their main and secondary boiler. Both had broken.

“That’s created an indoor temperature of 32 degrees and frozen the church/s holy water,” we reported in February. “The sisters are using space heaters to stay warm.”

Turns out, though, that the nuns of Fraternite of Notre Dame have money in other places - namely property in McHenry County, ABC 7 News is reporting.

“When they have millions of dollars in property here and now they are expanding and wanting to add a brewery and a winery and gift shop and school and all of those things and I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t afford to fix their church and why other people had to be responsible for that,” Judy Link, a Marengo resident told ABC 7 News.

A week before the boilers went out, the nuns filed a zoning permit request in McHenry County. Seems they want to build on land they own there.

“The order wants to build and operate a school with an attached dormitory; a nursing home with hospice, a commercial kitchen with facilities to brew beer and process grapes for wine; a gift shop and tasting area,” ABC 7 reported.

The nuns, who received about $232,000 to repair the boiler, said the money raised was not going to the McHenry County project. The nuns said they do not receive a salary.

“All the money we got for the boiler, all the money we got from GoFundMe, all that money stay here to our feeding program in Chicago,” Sister Marie Valerie told ABC 7.

Additionally, the nuns are not a Vatican-approved order.

“We are a new order. We want to be with the Vatican. We want to be with the Archdiocese. We are working on it and took some steps to be with the Vatican,” Sister Marie Valerie told ABC 7.