KAZIMIERZ DOLNY, Poland (AP) — Court officials backed by 150 police pushed their way into a convent in eastern Poland on Wednesday to evict about 65 rebellious ex-nuns and a monk who have occupied the complex illegally for two years.

The women had taken over the building in a rebellion against the Vatican, which had ordered the replacement of their mother superior, Jadwiga Ligocka.

"They were disobedient," said Mieczyslaw Puzewicz, a spokesman for the Lublin diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. "They didn't recognize the authority of the mother superior."

"They were swearing at policemen," Sokolowski told The Associated Press from outside the complex. Others, however, were cooperating with police who were trying to remove them, he said.