CNA Staff, May 23, 2024 / 13:04 pm (CNA).
The Holy See has reinstated a Carmelite mother superior nearly a year after the bishop of Fort Worth, Texas, dismissed her after alleged inappropriate conduct with a priest.
Bishop Michael Olson issued a decree on June 1, 2023, dismissing Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach from religious life following a nearly six-week-long investigation into the affair.
Gerlach had previously served as the prioress of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington. Olson said at the time of the dismissal that the investigation had found her “guilty of having violated the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue and her vow of chastity with a priest from outside the Diocese of Fort Worth.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Olson said that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life “informed me that it overturned the decree dismissing Mother Teresa Agnes” from the Arlington monastery.
“Although the dicastery acknowledged that Mother Teresa Agnes admitted to misconduct against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue,” Olson wrote, “they reasoned in part that her admission did not establish that the misconduct was ‘perpetrated by the exertion of force or violence.’”
The Code of Canon Law (No. 1395) stipulates that a cleric who commits a sin against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue using “force, threats, or abuse of his authority” can suffer significant penalties, up to and including dismissal.
“Additionally, the dicastery reasoned in part that her admission of misconduct did not establish abuse of her ecclesiastical authority of prioress, since she ‘possessed no real or even imagined authority’ over her accomplice, a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, since he was not ‘subject to Mother Teresa Agnes’ authority as prioress,’” Olson said.
In its decree, the dicastery also said that the mother superior was “not afforded the full 15 days allotted to respond fully to the canonical warnings” regarding her disobedience of the bishop.
Though it reversed the decision dismissing Gerlach from her role at the monastery, the dicastery “upheld the decisions I made last year” regarding the larger investigation, Olson said on Wednesday.
“All decisions were made for the good of Mother Teresa Agnes and the Arlington Carmel and its sisters,” Olson said on Wednesday, “in accordance with my obligation under canon law and the rule and constitutions of the Arlington Carmelites as the local bishop.”
The dispute between the Carmelite nuns and Olson has grown increasingly bitter over the last year. During the investigation, Olson banned the monastery from celebrating daily Mass and blocked access to regular confessions.
At the time he accused the nuns of hindering his investigation into the monastery after they filed a lawsuit against him. The Vatican subsequently appointed the bishop as the pontifical commissary in the dispute, confirming his authority over the nuns in his diocese.
In April of this year the Vatican declared that the Association of Christ the King in the United States would oversee the “government, discipline, studies, goods, rights, and privileges” of the Arlington monastery. That decision ended the bishop’s role as the pontifical commissary.
Several days later the nuns filed a request for a restraining order against Olson and the parties tasked with overseeing the monastery.
Before filing for the restraining order, the nuns had indicated their intent to defy the Vatican’s decree regarding oversight of the monastery, labeling it “a hostile takeover that we cannot in conscience accept.” The nuns subsequently dropped the request for the restraining order.
On Wednesday Olson said the association’s oversight would “ensure that all the nuns within the monastery can be heard, rightly cared for, and nurtured in their religious life in full communion with the Catholic Church.”
“As their bishop, I stand ready to pastorally assist the nuns of the Arlington Carmel,” he said.
Matthew Bobo, the lawyer representing the nuns, said that Gerlach would continue to stay at the monastery following the decision.
“She never left the monastery as she was awaiting the recourse from the Vatican,” he told CNA, “which was obviously returned in her favor.”
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It is a most welcome result for all of us. Sr.’s good name and vocation and her convent’s, were made to suffer slur and unfounded disruption and God would have them and their happiness restored and defended.
The tempter parties know themselves.
I am praying for Sr.’s strength and sound senses and may God bless her in His love.
Hello I hope I do not come across as abusive or vindictive but would like to know what happened to the priest who was the other half of this so-called ‘inappropriate conduct’. Has he been named and if not why not? I am not surprised that a picture appears of a woman but not a man. Please would you reply as I am confused as to why the Catholic Church seems to be one sided. Thanking you K Millard
‘ The scandal played out in the press through actions taken by the Vatican, lawsuits in civil courts, and through public statements on both sides.
Last December, the Vatican issued a decree of suppression of the Arlington Carmelite monastery.
Olson announced the suppression just over a year ago, on Dec. 2, 2024, emphasizing at the time that the women at the monastery “are neither nuns nor Carmelites despite their continued and public self-identification to the contrary.”
He added that the Holy See “suppressed the monastery, so it exists no longer, despite any public self-identification made to the contrary by the former nuns who continue to occupy the premises.”
In August of that year, the nuns posted on their website that they had joined the Society of St. Pius X, a group that is in an “irregular” canonical situation within the Church. ‘
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/12/12/new-carmelite-monastery-to-open-in-fort-worth-diocese-following-scandal/
The Vatican gave two answers but it would seem it really means to end the issue and the original community?
‘ The scandal played out in the press through actions taken by the Vatican, lawsuits in civil courts, and through public statements on both sides.
Last December, the Vatican issued a decree of suppression of the Arlington Carmelite monastery.
Olson announced the suppression just over a year ago, on Dec. 2, 2024, emphasizing at the time that the women at the monastery “are neither nuns nor Carmelites despite their continued and public self-identification to the contrary.”
He added that the Holy See “suppressed the monastery, so it exists no longer, despite any public self-identification made to the contrary by the former nuns who continue to occupy the premises.”
In August of that year, the nuns posted on their website that they had joined the Society of St. Pius X, a group that is in an “irregular” canonical situation within the Church. ‘
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2025/12/12/new-carmelite-monastery-to-open-in-fort-worth-diocese-following-scandal/
“As their bishop, I stand ready to pastorally assist the nuns of the Arlington Carmel,”
“During the investigation, Olson banned the monastery from celebrating daily Mass and blocked access to regular confessions.”
Somebody get the Bishop some duct tape, that sort of cognitive dissonance can cause spontaneous, explosive cranial failure.
With that said, resort to civil courts was stupid.
Consideration.
Sr. would have been triumphant in the interior battle which was Satan’s opening gambit; whereupon Satan let go to bang at the doors with a way to try and confound everybody.
Let us depend rather on the Divine Providence.