By Mario Galgano – Rögle, Sweden
The convent of Rögle, in the southern Swedish region of Skåne, is a place of silence. On Sundays, in addition to the few residents, guests from cities like Malmö, Stockholm and Lund visit the local church.
Many of them are not Catholic, explained Sister Veronica, who has been part of the Dominican community for some years. “They say: I don’t know who I am. I want silence. I want to find myself,” she said.
Sister Veronica is from Paris, and is the only foreigner in the small community. Before joining the Rögle convent, she spent many years living in a lay community. She converted to the Catholic Church just nine years later. She moved to Sweden in 2021, at her superior general’s request.
“I was very happy. I had read the book about Nils Holgersson as a little girl,” she recalled with a smile.
The situation in Sweden, however, was completely different. “When I arrived, I had significant prejudices”, she affirmed. She was struck by how little was known about the Catholic Church.
“Many people didn’t even know that Catholics are Christians,” she noted. She now lives in Rögle with three other religious sisters.
