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New York Is Holding $19 Million That Belongs to These Nuns

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Cite

Long, M. (2026, September 17). New York Is Holding $19 Million That Belongs to These Nuns. The Free Press. https://www.thefp.com/p/new-york-is-holding-19-million-from-nuns

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

The Free Press · collected 2026-09-17 · by Madeleine Long

Quick Summary

New York attorney general Letitia James has withheld $19.3 million from a 2024 property sale involving the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence, who sold their Jeanne d'Arc Residence in Manhattan for $22.5 million to Red Apple Group. The sale required approval under state law to ensure proceeds align with the charity’s original purpose. While James approved the deal and released some funds for carrying costs, property taxes, and broker fees, she has not explained why the majority of the sale proceeds remain unreleased over two years later.
Written by AI on 2026-09-18, from this article's own text only (the story summary below draws on all the coverage).

AI analysis

Story summary

In 2024, the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence, a small Catholic religious order based in Kentucky, sold Jeanne d’Arc Residence in Manhattan for $22.5 million to Red Apple Group, led by billionaire John Catsimatidis. The sale was necessary due to unaffordable repairs and the impact of the pandemic on their aging community. Under New York state law, a charity must obtain approval from the attorney general or a court before selling significant assets. After reviewing the deal, New York Attorney General Letitia James approved the sale but refused to release the remaining $19.3 million in sale proceeds, holding it for over two years without explanation. This has left the nuns unable to access funds that were meant to cover carrying costs and expenses totaling nearly $446,000 in state property taxes and real-estate broker fees. The sisters have been operating on a shoestring budget since closing the residence in 2021, making this financial hold-up particularly challenging for them.

Written for “Nun Sues New York For Money” on 2026-11-03, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Nun Sues New York For Money
Politics · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

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Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
6
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
0%
0 of 6 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
Leans left
of the writing, not the subject · beta estimate
Publisher signals
97/100
The Free Press's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Politics
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-09-18 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

The Free Press · 420 article(s) · 0 correction(s) detected
No corrections detected for this publisher. That may mean careful reporting, or simply that nothing has been checked.

Who wrote this

Madeleine Long
2 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 The next day he would be beatified in front of 50,000 people packed into a former NFL stadium.
2026-09-28 · assertive framing · Meet the 50,000 Catholics Who Went to See America’s Next Saint
🔮 Faced with unaffordable repairs that forced them to make a hard decision, the sisters sold the residence in 2024 for $22.5 million to Red Apple Group, led by John Catsimatidis, the billionaire supermarket magnate and former Republican candidate for New York mayor, who plans to redevelop the site into apartments.
2026-09-17 · assertive framing · New York Is Holding $19 Million That Belongs to These Nuns
Also by Madeleine Long
Meet the 50,000 Catholics Who Went to See America’s Next Saint
2026-09-28 · The Free Press
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

Topics

Catholic Kentucky Manhattan New York the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence

Subjects

New York GPE · 2× Catholic NORP · 1× Jeanne d’Arc ORG · 1× John Catsimatidis PERSON · 1× Kentucky GPE · 1× Letitia James PERSON · 1× Manhattan GPE · 1× Red Apple Group ORG · 1× Republican NORP · 1× the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence ORG · 1×

Narrative

After reviewing the deal, New York attorney general Letitia James approved the sale of Jeanne d’Arc, plus the payment of $2.7 million to the religious order for “carrying costs and expenses” it had covered on Jeanne d’Arc’s behalf and nearly $446,000 for state property taxes and real-estate broker fees and services. But James refused to release the remaining $19.3 million in sale proceeds—and still hasn’t more than two years later.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-18
🔮 Faced with unaffordable repairs that forced them to make a hard decision, the sisters sold the residence in 2024 for $22.5 million to Red Apple Group, led by John Catsimatidis, the billionaire supermarket magnate and former Republican candidate for New York mayor, who plans to redevelop the site into apartments.
2026-09-18 · The Free Press
New York Is Holding $19 Million That Belongs to These Nuns · assertive framing

Claims (6 extracted, 0 hedged)

For 123 years, the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence, a small Catholic religious order based in Kentucky, ran The Jeanne d’Arc Residence in Manhattan as a way to give young women who were new to the city an affordable, safe place to live. asserted
who → base → place
Members of the order staffed it themselves until 2021, when the pandemic and a shrinking, aging community of sisters finally forced its closure—one of many such convent boardinghouses squeezed out by rising costs and dwindling vocations to religious orders. asserted
pandemic → staff → orders
Just a handful still exist across the city. asserted
handful → exist → city
Faced with unaffordable repairs that forced them to make a hard decision, the sisters sold the residence in 2024 for $22.5 million to Red Apple Group, led by John Catsimatidis, the billionaire supermarket magnate and former Republican candidate for New York mayor, who plans to redevelop the site into apartments. asserted
who → face → apartments
Under state law, a charity can’t sell a major asset without approval from the state attorney general or a court, a rule meant to ensure that sale proceeds remain tied to the not-for-profit’s original charitable purpose. asserted
proceeds → sell → purpose
After reviewing the deal, New York attorney general Letitia James approved the sale of Jeanne d’Arc, plus the payment of $2.7 million to the religious order for “carrying costs and expenses” it had covered on Jeanne d’Arc’s behalf and nearly $446,000 for state property taxes and real-estate broker fees and services. But James refused to release the remaining $19.3 million in sale proceeds—and still hasn’t more than two years later. asserted
James → review → proceeds
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