A group of cloistered nuns in rural Pennsylvania who trace their history back to 16th-century Spain are building a sprawling monastery meant to last 1,000 years — and they’re doing it almost entirely by hand.
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they → trace → hand
Expected to be completed in 2041 at a cost of $100 million, the 48-acre Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph monastery in Fairfield, Penn., is entirely the vision of one woman — Mother Thérèse of Merciful Love, the 41-year-old daughter of a firefighter from Cape Cod, Mass.
“We had a vision, a dream, an interior kind of intuition that there was something that we needed to do different,” Mother, as she’s known around the compound, told The Post in an exclusive interview from behind an iron screen inside the monastery’s guest house.
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she → expect → house
“We are building an authentic building.”
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We → build → building
The nuns are laying the foundation brick-by-brick themselves, in between their daily spiritual duties and tending to the livestock and garden.
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nuns → lay → livestock
For the heavier lifting, they’ve brought in outside help — renowned New York architect Riccardo Vicenzino and local contractor Joe Bonifate, who is also in charge of fundraising.
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who → bring → fundraising
“They’re very good students.
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They → ’re → ?
They arrive on time, take instruction very well,” Bonifate told The Post of his holy labor force.
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Bonifate → arrive → force
“If I can just find more crews that had a vow of obedience and were working toward something greater than their next raise I’d be sitting good.
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I → find → raise
We could build anything with a crew like that.”
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We → build → that
For the next couple decades, the nuns will be living on a construction site as the project comes together, but that’s not an issue.
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that → live → site
“It can be an amusing part of our day, when you’re trying to go to mass in the morning and you have to avoid being crushed by the telehandler,” Mother said.
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Mother → try → telehandler
Vicenzino’s Manhattan-based firm is working on sacred spaces as far away as Texas, as well as Park Avenue and West Village apartments, but this projects is an entirely different animal.
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projects → base → Texas
Under Mother’s instruction, nothing made by machine is allowed in the building’s construction.
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nothing → make → construction
That means even the nails must be hand-forged.
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nails → mean → ?
Luckily, they found a guy in Kentucky who makes nails.
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who → find → nails
Other materials include Pennsylvania field stone, local timber, lime mortar, slate roof tiles, copper downspouts, and hand-made bricks from North Carolina.
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materials → include → Carolina
We’re bound by Mother’s dictate of authenticity,” said Vicenzino.
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Vicenzino → bind → authenticity
“To do something like this from scratch we really had to dust off our old books.”
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we → do → books
He added, “Mother is making requests and we really have to roll up our sleeves and prove through precedence that these things are not crazy.
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things → add → precedence
It can be done.
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It → do → ?
We’re using old concepts of thermodynamics that they used to know, this wisdom from back in the old days when there was no A/C.
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they → use → days
There are traditions of radiant floor heat that have been around for millennia — the Romans, the Spanish, the Koreans.
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that → be → millennia
The project includes a 22-foot-deep subterranean ice house, where blocks of ice will be stored year-round between layers of sawdust and transported to the main building using a pony and cart.
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blocks → include → pony
It will be accessed via a custom-made steel ladder which Mother was initially resistant to because the steel was machine-made.
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steel → access → which
She eventually relented.
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She → relent → ?
“I’ve had bigger battles,” chuckled Bonifate.
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Bonifate → have → battles
The Fairfield Carmelites stem from St. Teresa of Ávila’s 16th-century Spanish reform, which opened its first monastery in what is now Puebla, Mexico, in 1604.
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what → stem → 1604
In the 19th century, reform laws nearly extinguished the Carmelites from Mexico.
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laws → extinguish → Mexico
The 1910 Mexican Revolution and 1926 Cristero War forced further expulsions, with some nuns fleeing to Valparaiso, Neb.
The Fairfield community is an offshoot of the Nebraska order and continues its strict Teresian tradition of enclosure — a spiritual rule that strictly separates them from the outside world — and traditional Latin Mass.
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that → force → world
This has caused friction with Rome in recent years, stemming from the 2018 instruction of Cor Orans, a Vatican document regulating cloistered nuns that reduces the autonomy of contemplative monasteries and requires them to join federations.
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that → cause → federations
Mother is one of the few cloistered nuns who has been outspoken in her opposition to Rome’s meddling in their way of life, viewing it as a threat to their traditional worship.
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who → view → worship
After helping revive a declining Philadelphia order, the Fairfield Carmelites withdrew from Philadelphia’s Carmel in 2021 amid these disputes, triggering the removal of their chaplain and pressure to conform.
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Carmelites → help → chaplain
Today, the nuns remain under the relatively hands-off jurisdiction of the Bishop of Harrisburg while still opposing the mandates from Rome.
“This is something that is happening in many sectors of life, the struggle between the global and the local.
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that → remain → global
Its character comes almost from the soil.
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character → come → soil
And that used to be quite easy because Rome was so far away,” Mother said.
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Mother → use → ?
“I understand the reasoning of it, but it’s kind of my job to remind the powers that be that sometimes the big rules that apply across the board have a way of squashing those unique cultures.
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that → understand → cultures
“It’s easy for big people from far away to have big answers that solve their problems.
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that → ’ → problems
But sometimes little guys have to say, ‘Wait, what about me?
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guys → have → me
I have something that’s beautiful.’
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that → have → something
“
While the numbers are always in flux, approximately 14 women live on the site today between externs, aspirants and Sisters. Around 50 will reside there once completed.
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50 → live → externs
…and 18 more, not listed.
The Aporia
