(OSV News) — Three elderly women religious in Austria fled their nursing home and have returned to their longtime monastery, defying church superiors in a case that highlights the impact of Vatican regulations regarding aging members of dwindling religious congregations. Since 1877, the site has housed a convent and private girls’ school, with the latter still in active operation, now as a co-educational facility. “I have been obedient all my life, but it was too much,” Sister Bernadette said, BBC News reported. “Due to the sisters’ advanced age and precarious health, as well as the spiritual needs of the order and the structural condition of the monastery, independent living at Goldenstein Monastery was no longer possible or justifiable,” he said. The nuns here changed so many lives in such a good way.”