A group of Texas nuns has been dismissed from religious life and returned to the lay state after a lengthy feud with their bishop over the governance of their monastery. Source: National Catholic Register.
Mother Marie of the Incarnation, the president of the Association of Christ the King, said in a letter to the Diocese of Fort Worth on Monday that the nuns of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, have been dismissed from the Order of Discalced Carmelites and “reverted to the lay state” after more than a year of sustained defiance of their superiors.
The dismissal caps a bitter and divisive feud between the Carmelite nuns and Church authorities ranging from Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson to the Vatican itself.
The controversy began last year when Bishop Olson launched an investigation into the monastery amid allegations that Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach had conducted an affair with a priest.
The nuns in May 2023 filed a lawsuit against Bishop Olson over the investigation, claiming violations of privacy and harming the physical and emotional well-being of the sisters. Bishop Olson eventually dismissed Gerlach from religious life.
In April of this year, the Vatican declared that the Association of Christ the King in the US would oversee the “government, discipline, studies, goods, rights, and privileges” of the Texas monastery.
The nuns, however, defied the Vatican order, going so far as to associate with the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist group that is not in full communion with the Catholic Church and has a canonically irregular status.
On Monday, Mother Marie 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 of Marie herself as their superior. She said the nuns also committed “unlawful formal association” with SSPX.
The nuns’ dismissal from religious life was brought about “by their own actions,” Mother Marie wrote.
FULL STORY
Texas Nuns Dismissed From Religious Life After Lengthy Feud With Bishop, Vatican (By Daniel Payne, National Catholic Register)
