FORT WORTH, Texas — A group of Carmelite nuns in Arlington called the announcement of their dismissal from religious life by their Vatican-appointed leader a “moot point.”
The nuns, who live at the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity said in a statement that the dismissal announced by Vatican-appointed Mother Marie of the Incarnation isn’t associated with the Society of St. Pius X, a group that has been the subject of controversy and has no canonical status in the Catholic Church.
"The Vows we have professed to God cannot be dismissed or taken away. By virtue of them we belong to Him and are His,” the nun’s statement reads. “Given that we pray every day for the Holy Father, Pope Francis and our Ordinary, Michael Olson, any claim that we have departed from the Catholic faith is ridiculous.”
The nuns’ statement comes after Mother Marie of the Incarnation’s statement Monday that the nuns are no longer members of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, which they’d belonged to.
The letter indicated that they could return as nuns if they repent.
“Our only wish is that the dismissed members of the Carmel would repent, so that the monastic property could again be rightly called a monastery, inhabited by Discalced Carmelite Nuns, in good canonical standing with the Church of Rome,” the letter said.
That statement came about a month after the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity announced it had completed the final steps necessary for the monastery to be associated with the Society of Saint Pius X.
In response, Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson told members not to participate in sacraments at the monastery or offer them financial support as doing so, he said, would associate them with the "scandalous disobedience and disunity" of the nuns.
The back-and-forth is the latest development in a year-plus-long fight between the nuns and Olson. It began in June of last year after the bishop accused the monastery’s head nun, the Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach, of violating her vows of chastity with a priest from outside the diocese.
The nuns in their statement Thursday called that accusation false.
The monastery then filed a civil lawsuit against Olson and the diocese, accusing them of theft and defamation. That civil suit was dismissed in June of last year.
The Vatican placed the nuns under new authority, Mother Marie of the Incarnation, President of the Association of Christ the King, earlier this year, but the nuns wouldn’t allow Mother Marie onto the premises.
