Texas nuns are expelled by the Vatican for breaking chastity vows with online love affairs

The Vatican has expelled a group of Texas nuns over a yearslong dispute between the sisters and Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson after he accused their Reverend Mother of breaking her chastity vows with an online love affair.

Olson recorded his April 2023 interrogation of Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach at her monastery in Arlington, during which she appeared to admit to having had a consensual long-distance telephone romance with Father Philip Johnson, a retired former priest from the diocese in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The bishop alleged that by participating in the sexting relationship, Gerlach had committed sins of adultery, in violation of the Sixth Commandment and her vow of chastity. according to Kron.

In October, the Catholic leader appointed to oversee the nuns dismissed the religious order, and on November 28, the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life – a group within the Catholic Church that oversees matters related to religious orders – issues an order. decree of suppression of the Discalced Carmelite Monastery of Arlington, KERA News items.

That means the convent is “extinct” and no longer recognized by the Catholic Church, and that the women living in the convent “are neither nuns nor Carmelites, despite their continued public self-identification to the contrary,” Olson said. wrote to congregants on Monday.

He said that all masses and sacraments held at the monastery are hereby “illegal and take place without powers or permission to serve” within the diocese.

Olson then warned that Catholics would be “gravely wrong” and “damage the Church” by attending services at the monastery.

“The actions of the former nuns have caused a deep wound in the Body of Christ,” he wrote. “I ask all of you to join me in praying for healing, reconciliation and for the conversion of these women who have left the vowed religious life and by their actions have notoriously been denied communication with the Catholic Church.”

The Vatican has now expelled the nuns from the Discalced Carmelite Monastery of Arlington

But the nuns apparently left the Vatican’s decree behind them with the Society of St. Pius X, a Roman Catholic priest group that broke with the Vatican over the Latin Mass.

They have repeatedly accused Olson of trying to gain control of their $3.8 million, 72-acre Arlington estate.

The nuns even sued the Diocese of Fort Worth and Bishop Olson for $1 million in May 2023 for allegedly violating privacy and harming the sisters’ physical and emotional well-being.

The following month, Olson dismissed Gerlach from religious life, saying she admitted to engaging in unspecified sexual conduct via video chat with Johnson, but claimed no physical act ever took place.

“I made a terrible, terrible mistake,” Gerlach is heard saying on the recording, according to a partial transcript published by the Fort Worth Star-Telegramin which her voice was described as ‘barely audible’.

A lawyer representing the monastery has since claimed that Gerlach was “on heavy medication due to a procedure” after she was hospitalized for seizures, and did not recall her statement to investigators.

Michael Olson, Diocese of Fort Worth, announced in a letter to congregants that the group is ‘extinct’

At the time, Olson tried to fire Gerlach from her position, and in April 2024 the Vatican appointed Mother Marie of the Incarnation, the president of the Association of Christ the King in the US, as “legal superior” to “exercise full administration.” above the monastery.

But the nuns instead tried to keep Gerlach as their leader and announced their new affiliation with the Society of Saint Pius X in September.

They then called mother Marie’s dismissal a ‘point of discussion’.

“The vows we have made by God cannot be rejected or taken away,” the nuns declared, according to the Dallas Morning News. “It is because of them that we belong to Him and are His.”

“Given that we pray every day before the Holy Father, Pope Francis and Our Ordinary Michael Olson, any claim that we have departed from the Catholic faith is ridiculous,” they continued.

Attorney Matthew Bobo, who represents the nuns, said they are now “safe from Bishop Olson’s efforts and continue their commitment to their lives of contemplative prayer.”

He had previously explained that he had helped the sisters in September transfer their vast properties from the nonprofit convent to the newly formed Friends of the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Arlington “to add a very ironclad and certain barrier to any claim which Bishop Olson thinks he will one day. have in that area.’

Bobo also asserted that the association is “addressing Bishop Olson’s latest attempts to harass the nuns, and we have confidence in that process.”

But John Cuccaro, a spokesman for the diocese, insisted to Chron that it “never wanted Arlington’s land, and does not want that land now.”

“The residents of Arlington are no longer nuns, and the property is no longer a Catholic monastery, according to the Holy See,” he added.

Meanwhile, all civil lawsuits filed by the nuns against the diocese and Olson have been dismissed by a judge or voluntarily withdrawn by the sisters.