Spain's barefoot nuns put faith in YouTube to find new convent recruits

For the 11 remaining "Barefoot Carmelite" nuns at the San Jose convent in Ecija, near the southern Spanish city of Seville, the future looked grim, reports The Guardian.

No young novices had joined the convent for three years and, as is happening in convents all over Spain, their numbers were dwindling so fast as the elder ones died that it looked as though it may have to close after almost 400 years.

The convent's mother superior, Mother Isabel, was persuaded by friends that the best way to recruit new nuns would be to put up a video on YouTube to show how life was lived inside Ecija's 14th-century Mudéjar palace-turned-convent.

Thousands of YouTube visits later, not only has the phone been ringing almost continuously, but the first new novice has walked through the doors after seeing the video online.

emily | 9:53 AM | YouTube |
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/tv/archives/2009/01/022374.htm