The Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington welcomed lay worshippers on Saturday for the first time since the earliest days of the fraught battle between the monastery’s nuns and the bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth.
About two dozen worshippers, mostly women, took part in a rosary in communion with the nuns in the monastery’s chapel. The rosary service was organization by the Ladies Auxiliary to the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the monastery.
“This was the first time since April 26 that the lay faithful have prayed in the chapel with the nuns,” said Natalie Strand, president of the Ladies Auxiliary. “It was very special and beautiful.”
The rosary service also closely coincided with the 25th anniversary of Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach’s entry into the Carmel, Strand said.
The decision to open the gates to the monastery, situated on the serene grounds of the Carmelites’ south Arlington property, follows the nuns’ bold decision to reject Bishop Michael Olson’s authority over them due to his mistreatment of them.
The nuns also banished him from the Carmelite property, according to a statement they released on Aug. 18.
“In recent months our Monastery in general and our Mother Prioress in particular have been subjected to unprecedented interference, intimidation, aggression, private and public humiliation and spiritual manipulation as the direct result of the attitudes and ambitions of the current bishop of Fort Worth,” the nuns said in the statement.
“In order to protect the integrity of our monastic life and vocation from the grave dangers that the continued abuse to which we are being subjected threaten, we hereby state that, in conscience, we no longer recognize the authority of, and can have no further relations with, the current Bishop of Fort Worth or his officials and forbid him or any of his officials or representatives to enter our monastery property or to have any contact or relations with the monastery or any of its nuns or novices,” the nuns stated.
“No one who abuses us as has the current Bishop of Fort Worth, has any right to our cooperation or obedience,” they further stated.
In response, Olson issued a statement, restating his appointment from Rome as Pontifical Commissary for matters involving the nuns and monastery, and announcing that that Gerlach “may have incurred upon herself latae sententiae (i.e. by her schismatic actions) excommunication. Furthermore, the other nuns depending “on their complicity in Mother Teresa Agnes’ publicly scandalous and schismatic action could possibly have incurred the same latae sententiae excommunication.
The nuns doubled down on with a pronouncement on Aug. 26 that reiterated their rejection of their authority.
The dueling statements followed months of contentiousness that began in April when he announced that he was investigating Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach based on a report that she had broken her vow of chastity with an out-of-state priest that she said she never met in person.
The nuns filed a $1 million lawsuit against the bishop, claiming that Olson overstepped his authority, wrongly confiscated their electronic devices in his investigation of Gerlach’s alleged broken vow of chastity and defamed them with allegations of illegal drug use at the monastery and Gerlach’s abuse of prescription medication to treat a chronic medical condition that has kept her wheelchair-bound and dependent on a feeding tube and central catheter line.
The nuns’ attorney, Matthew Bobo, has stated that the nuns have property rights to the monastery and its surrounding acreage since they own the property.
Strand said the nuns’ decision to reject Olson’s authority allowed them to open the monastery “because we can.”
No further plans for future worship inside the monastery have been announced.
The lay worshippers included a group of people from Dallas, who attended a rosary and prayer service that the auxiliary hosted in May at a nearby park in Arlington.
“We came over from Dallas to show our support for the sisters and the lay faithful of Arlington and let them know that we love all of you,” said a woman who requested to be identified only by her first name, Olivia.
Auxiliary board member Valerie Moore of Arlington said: “I was honored to be here today. The sisters have been good citizens in the secular world as well as the world of the church and they deserve our love and respect.”