NATION : 3 Protesting Nuns Face Dismissal

MORRIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Three rebel nuns who locked themselves in a wing of their convent last October face dismissal from the Carmelite order if they do not submit to Vatican rulings and abandon their protest by July 1, a Roman Catholic Church spokesman said today.

The church is urging the dissident traditionalist nuns to concede defeat and emerge from their self-imposed eight-month exile in an infirmary at the Monastery of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, said Timothy Manning, a spokesman for the diocese of Paterson.

The Carmelite community in the monastery will begin a 40-day expulsion process July 1 if the nuns--a 72-year-old former prioress and two other sisters who are protesting liberalization of their order--do not submit to church authority by then, Manning said.