Texas nuns dismissed from religious life after long feud with bishop, Vatican | National Catholic Register

The release ends a bitter and controversial feud between the Carmelites and church authorities, from Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson to the Vatican itself.

A group of Texas nuns have been dismissed from religious life and returned to the lay state after a long dispute with their bishop over the management of their convent.

Mother Mary of the Incarnation, president of the Association of Christ the King, said in a letter to the Diocese of Fort Worth on Monday that the nuns of Holy Trinity Convent in Arlington, Texas, were dismissed from the Discalced Carmelite Order and “returned to the lay state” after more than a year of constant disobedience to their superiors.

The release ends a bitter and controversial feud between the Carmelites and church authorities, from Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson to the Vatican itself.

The controversy began last year when Bishop Olson launched an investigation into the convent amid allegations that the Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach had an affair with a priest.

Nuns in May 2023 filed suit against Olson over the investigationalleging invasion of privacy and harm to the sisters’ physical and emotional well-being. After all, Bishop Olson removed Gerlach from religious life.

In April of this year – said the Vatican that the Association of Christ the King in the United States of America would control the “administration, discipline, teaching, benefits, rights and privileges” of the Texas monastery.

However, the nuns defied the Vatican, going so far as to cooperate with the Society of St. Pia H (SSPX), a traditionalist group that is not in full communion with the Catholic Church and has canonically irregular status.

“Our only wish is that they repent”

On Monday, Mother Mary of the Incarnation said the nuns’ repeated defiance included denying the authority of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as well as denying the authority of their bishop and Mary herself as their superior. She said the nuns had also committed “illegal official association” with the SSPX.

These violations were “compounded by the illegal expropriation of the legal entity of the Carmelite monastery,” Mother Marie wrote.

According to her, the nuns “entrusted the laity” with the property of the monastery, which “was entrusted to them by countless benefactors for the purpose of serving Christ in the Church through the life of the Discalced Carmelites.”

The removal of the nuns from religious life was caused by “their own actions,” Mother Marie wrote.

“I ask for your continued prayers and sacrifices for these seven women,” she said, adding that “our only desire is that the dismissed members of Carmel repent so that the convent property can once again be rightly called a convent.” inhabited by Discalced Carmelites belonging to the Roman Church.

In a brief statement accompanying the announcement, Olson reiterated Mother Marie’s call to pray for the dismissed nuns and ordered Catholics to refrain from attending mass at the convent.

He also asked the faithful “not to provide financial support” to the nuns.

In a letter last month, Bishop Olson responded to reports that the nuns reappointed Gerlach as superior in an illegal election. The bishop called this step “scandalous” and “permeated with the smell of division.”

In her letter on Monday, Mother Marie said the Carmelite nun “promised to live according to the rules and constitutions of the Discalced Carmelite Order.”

The nuns were given the opportunity to reunite with the Church, she said, but they “chose differently, and their choice led to a different status that is now theirs.”