Nun Battling Katy Perry Over Convent Sale Dies In Court

Updated

A nun involved in a legal battle over Katy Perry’s bid to buy a Los Angeles convent collapsed and died during a Friday court appearance related to the dispute.

Sister Catherine Rose Holzman, of the Sisters of the Most Holy And Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was 89, according to ABC 7. Her cause of death was not immediately clear.

Holzman was among the nuns fighting for the ability to sell their former hilltop convent in Los Feliz to local businesswoman Dana Hollister — a desire in direct opposition to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ wish to sell the property to superstar Katy Perry.

The nuns, who haven’t lived in the property since 2011, sold the convent to Hollister in 2015. The L.A. archdiocese subsequently sued her, saying the sisters didn’t have the authority to sell the convent. Perry spent more than $2 million in legal fees fighting the small group of elderly nuns, according to Curbed LA.

The convent boasts gorgeous views of the San Gabriel Mountains and downtown Los Angeles. Hollister had plans to turn the convent into a hotel, while Perry reportedly wants to live there.

Pop star Katy Perry spent more than $2 million fighting a group of elderly nuns for the ability to purchase their former convent. (Photo: Danny Moloshok / Reuters)
Pop star Katy Perry spent more than $2 million fighting a group of elderly nuns for the ability to purchase their former convent. (Photo: Danny Moloshok / Reuters)

In 2016, a judge sided with the archdiocese and Perry and invalidated the sale to Hollister, clearing a path for Perry to buy the convent. In November of last year, a jury found that Hollister had intentionally interfered with the sale to Perry and a judge ordered her to pay millions to the archdiocese and the singer.

The nuns fear that because Perry’s $14.5 million offer was made to the archdiocese — without the nuns being involved — they would never receive any money from the sale, Billboard reported in 2015. They also have issues with the singer herself.

“Katy Perry represents everything we don’t believe in,” Holzman told Billboard. “It would be a sin to sell to her.”

At the time of Holzman’s death on Friday, she was in court for a post-judgment hearing on the case, TMZ reports.

Just hours before she died, she gave an interview to Fox 11, speaking alongside Sister Rita Callanan. The two said that they were appealing to the Vatican to give them control over their convent. The nun also implored Perry to “please stop” pursuing the purchase of the property.

Also on HuffPost

Belief in God has wavered.

In 1966, some 98 percent of Americans said they believed in God, <a href="https://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx" target="_blank">according to a Gallup survey</a>. When Gallup and Pew Research surveyed Americans in&nbsp;2014, the number had dropped to 86 percent and 89 percent respectively. Among the youngest adults surveyed by Pew, those born between 1990 and 1996, the share of believers was just 80 percent.<br /><br />Some researchers <a href="https://time.com/4283975/god-belief-religion-americans/">argue</a> that the number has decreased simply because Americans are more comfortable now than they were in the 60s admitting that they don&rsquo;t believe in God.

Christianity has declined.

In 1948, Gallup <a href="https://www.gallup.com/poll/103459/questions-answers-about-americans-religion.aspx">found</a> that about 91 percent of Americans identified as Christian. That number took a big dip in subsequent decades and continues to decline in recent years. From 2007 to 2014 alone, the percentage of Americans who identified as Christian <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/">fell</a> from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent.

A new “religious” group has emerged.

Nearly one in three Americans under 35 today are <a href="https://time.com/4285837/rumors-of-gods-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/">religiously unaffiliated</a>, meaning they do not identify with any formal religious group. As a whole, these &ldquo;nones&rdquo; comprise the second largest religious group in the U.S. behind evangelical Protestants.

Spirituality has taken center stage.

The term &ldquo;spiritual but not religious&rdquo; has emerged in recent years to describe how more and more Americans identify. Yes, religious affiliation has declined. But feelings of spiritual peace and wellbeing? Wonder about the universe? Both have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/21/americans-spirituality/" target="_blank">significantly increased</a> in the last decade across religious and nonreligious groups. Even among the unaffiliated and those who say religion isn&rsquo;t particularly important to them, spiritual sentiment is strong and growing. And more than half of atheists say they regularly feel a sense of awe and wonder. Between 2007 and 2014, the percentage of atheists who said they felt a deep sense of wonder about the universe on a weekly basis rose a full 17 points from 37 percent to 54 percent.

The importance of religion in Americans’ lives has shifted.

In 2007, 56 percent of Americans said religion was very important in their lives. <a href="https://www.gallup.com/poll/103459/questions-answers-about-americans-religion.aspx">Measures</a> of this question from the 1950s and 1960s showed that at that time, over 70 percent of Americans said religion was very important in their daily lives.

Church attendance has declined.

In a 1937 Gallup Poll,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gallup.com/poll/103459/questions-answers-about-americans-religion.aspx">73 percent of Americans</a> said they were church members. That percentage fell to around 70 percent in the '60s and '70s. By the 2000s, that number hovered around 60 percent.

More women are entering the clergy.

In many Christian and Jewish congregations, the number of clergywomen has <a href="https://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#womenin">greatly increased</a>. According to <a href="https://www.ats.edu/uploads/resources/institutional-data/annual-data-tables/2014-2015-annual-data-tables.pdf">data</a> from the Association of Theological Schools, women today make up about a third of all seminary students. Thirty years ago, women made up less than a fifth of seminary students.&nbsp;This is due in large part to the fact that&nbsp;it wasn&rsquo;t until after&nbsp;World War II that many of the larger and more prominent denominations <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/09/the-divide-over-ordaining-women/" target="_blank">started&nbsp;allowing women's ordination</a>.&nbsp;The United Methodist Church and what would later become the Presbyterian Church USA ordained their first women ministers in 1965. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reform Judaism, and the Episcopal Church followed their lead&nbsp;in the early 1970s.

The religious right got organized.

Contrary to popular belief, it was <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133">segregation</a> -- and not abortion -- that mobilized the religious right in the 1960s and '70s. In a series of court cases, Paul Weyrich, a religious conservative political activist, worked to organize evangelicals around segregation as an issue of &ldquo;<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133?o=1" target="_blank">religious freedom</a>.&rdquo; A 1971 ruling in <i>Green v. Connally </i><a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133?o=1" target="_blank">upheld</a>&nbsp;that racially discriminatory private schools could not receive tax exemption "for charitable, educational institutions, and persons making gifts to such schools." Weyrich and others tried to fight this by saying that because private schools received no federal funding, the government couldn't tell them how to operate (ie. they could continue discriminating against African American applicants.)&nbsp;Sound <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/us/mississippi-governor-signs-religious-freedom-bill/">familiar</a>?&nbsp;<br /><br />Prior to the 1970s, the relationship between evangelical Christians and the Republican party was negligible. In 2016, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine a Republican party without its evangelical voting bloc.

We entered an era of interfaith engagement.

In 1965, the Catholic Church took a huge step for interfaith relations by publishing a document that <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/vatican-ii-catholic-church-changes_n_1956641.html">acknowledged</a> the divine origin of all human beings. In the decades after, interfaith engagement exploded in the United States, with the founding of countless organizations and conferences dedicated to multi-faith dialogue. The Council for a Parliament of the World&rsquo;s Religions <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/28/interfaith-history-america_n_6061184.html">formed</a> in 1988 in the spirit of the first interfaith convention that occurred a century earlier, and groups like Interfaith Power &amp; Light and Interfaith Youth Core emerged to usher in a new millennium of interfaith work.

Non-Christian faiths have grown.

Islam, Hinduism and a number of other non-Christian faiths have risen in the U.S. in recent years. This change in the face of American religion might be partially a result of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5391395" target="_blank">Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965</a>, which led to an influx of immigrants from India and other countries with large Hindu and Muslim populations.&nbsp;Pew Research <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/14/muslims-expected-to-surpass-jews-as-second-largest-u-s-religious-group/">predicts</a> that by 2050, Muslims will surpass Jews as the second largest organized religious group after Christians. Hindus are also projected to rise from 0.7 percent of the U.S. population to 1.2 percent in 2050. Members of &ldquo;other religions&rdquo; (a category that includes Sikhs, Wiccans and Unitarian Universalists) are also expected to continue growing.

Islamophobia has risen sharply.

Anti-Muslim sentiment is not a new phenomenon in the United States. For the first half of the 20th century American courts frequently <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34385051">denied citizenship</a> to Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim, according to legal scholar Khaled A Beydoun.<br /><br />But many feel that Islamophobia has risen in recent decades, especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. In the last few years anti-Muslim aggression has taken <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/10/3748058/chapel-hill-anniversary/">a disturbing turn</a>, with new incidents being <a href="https://testkitchen.huffingtonpost.com/islamophobia/march/">reported weekly</a>.

Advocacy agencies were established for frequently targeted religious groups.

The <a href="https://www.cair.com/about-us.html">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a>, or CAIR, was founded in 1994 as an "organization that challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims." The <a href="https://www.sikhcoalition.org/about-us">Sikh Coalition</a> was formed in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and ensuing violence toward the country&rsquo;s Sikh population. The <a href="https://www.hafsite.org/about-us/who-we-are">Hindu American Foundation</a>, an advocacy organization for the Hindu American community, was founded in 2003. <a href="https://www.circlesanctuary.org/index.php/lady-liberty-league/lady-liberty-league">Lady Liberty League</a>, an organization that fights for religious freedom for Wiccans, pagans, and other nature religion practitioners, formed in 1985. And the list goes on.

The spirituality marketplace exploded.

From spiritual gurus, to self-help books, to wellness retreats, the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/how-much-should-it-cost-to-find-god/279345/">market for spirituality</a> in the U.S. has perhaps never been so robust. The self-help industry, which often include alternative modes of spirituality along with motivational books and life coaching, brings in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/07/11/james-arthur-ray-self-help-prison-column/2510209/">$13 billion a year</a> in the form of books, retreats, classes and more. In the last 50 years, modern spiritual gurus like Deepak Chopra, Dr. Andrew Weil, Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Oprah Winfrey, Byron Katie, Marianne Williamson and countless others emerged with a new prescription for well-being. Yoga became <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/16/how-the-yoga-industry-los_n_4441767.html">a $27 billion industry</a> with more than 20 million practitioners in the U.S. Meditation and mindfulness were quick to follow, gaining fans among <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/24/david-gelles-mindful-work_n_6933042.html">major companies</a> like Google, General Mills, Aetna and Goldman Sachs.

The New Atheists became a religion unto themselves.

Non-believers have always been <a href="https://mic.com/articles/57067/5-famous-americans-you-never-knew-were-atheists#.MFLwFRh7Y">part of the American demographic</a>, but atheists and humanists have perhaps never been as organized, prominent and vocal as they are today. Though many of the largest organizations, like American Atheists, American Humanist Association, and Freedom from Religion Foundation, were established decades ago, the <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/" target="_blank">New Atheists</a> emerged in the 2000s with a righteous, anti-religious fervor. Spearheaded by prominent British atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, as well as American atheist Sam Harris, the New Atheists have gained a large following eager to read their books, watch their debates and attend their conventions.&nbsp;

Megachurches have gained popularity.

In 1960 there were just a handful of churches that might be described as &ldquo;megachurches,&rdquo; those with a charismatic senior minister, an active social outreach ministry and at least 2,000 people attending every weekend. As of 2012, there were roughly <a href="https://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#womenin">1,600 megachurches</a> in the U.S.

Americans aren't necessarily sticking with the religion in which they were raised.

Pew Research <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-2-religious-switching-and-intermarriage/">found in 2014</a> that between 34-42 percent of American adults currently have a religious identity different from the one in which they were raised. (The number depends on whether Protestantism is treated as a single religious group or as three different traditions -- evangelical Protestantism, mainline Protestantism and historically black Protestantism.) Eighteen percent of Americans who were raised in a religion are now unaffiliated, compared with just 4 percent who have moved in the other direction.

Spirituality found a home online.

With the advent of computers, mobile apps and the Internet, faith has gone increasingly high-tech. To access spiritual teachings and communities we need look no further than our cell phones. Pew Research found in a 2014 survey that some 20 percent of Americans <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/religion-social-media_n_6107478.html">shared their faith online</a> in a given week. Sixty-one percent of millennials reported seeing others share their faith online. From <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/muslims-on-instagram_n_7600450.html">Instagram accounts</a> to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/17-great-podcasts-for-the-spiritually-curious_us_5641b8b3e4b0411d3072646e">podcasts</a> to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-live-life-fully_us_56a12902e4b0404eb8f0a22c">YouTube channels</a>, there are more ways than ever to find and share spirituality.

The neopagan goddess movement emerged.

Although famous 20th century occultists Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner had already died by 1966, the U.S. goddess movement was still yet to fully blossom. In the decades that followed, American pagan authors <a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Spiral-Dance-Religion-Anniversary/dp/0062516329" target="_blank">Starhawk</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Down-Moon-Witches-Goddess-Worshippers/dp/0143038192" target="_blank">Margot Adler</a> both published seminal works on the nature religion; priestess Selena Fox started&nbsp;<a href="https://www.circlesanctuary.org/index.php/organization/history-of-circle-sanctuary" target="_blank">Circle Sanctuary</a>; the <a href="https://www.cog.org/about-cog" target="_blank">Covenant of the Goddess</a> was founded; many different traditions were established; and the <a href="https://cherryhillseminary.org/about/mission/" target="_blank">first pagan seminary</a> opened its doors.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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