After more than a year of legal and religious disputes between Fort Worth Catholic Bishop Michael Olson and the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Arlington, the sisters are going “further down the path of disobedience to and disunity” with the Catholic Church and the Carmelite order, Olson announced Sept. 17.

His statement comes days after the sisters publicized their affiliation with the Society of Saint Pius X, also known as SSPX. The group is a traditionalist fraternity of priests headquartered in Switzerland. The society’s U.S. chapter has chapels in Texas, including one in North Richland Hills. 

The Arlington nuns’ announcement follows 18 months of legal action and ecclesiastical discord that dates to April 2023, when Olson opened an investigation of The Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach over allegations she violated her chastity vow with a priest. Civil lawsuits filed by the nuns have since been dropped by a judge or voluntarily dismissed by the sisters. 

In April 2024, the Vatican named Mother Marie of the Incarnation, president of the Association of Christ the King, as the “lawful superior” to “exercise full governance” over the monastery and nuns. Olson was set to oversee an election of new internal leadership to replace Gerlach, according to an April 18 statement. 

However, the nuns have rejected Mother Marie as their leader and are seeking to keep Gerlach in charge. Along with the Sept. 14 announcement of affiliation with the Society of Saint Pius X, the nuns said Gerlach was reelected for a three-year term following an August election presided over by the society’s leadership. 

“We completed the final steps necessary for our Monastery to be associated with the Society of Saint Pius X, who will henceforth assure our ongoing sacramental life and governance,” the sisters said. 

Olson called the elections “illicit and invalid,” arguing in his Sept. 17 statement that leadership decisions made by the sisters were not conducted in accord with ecclesiastical law and the Constitutions of the Order of Discalced Carmelites.

He also stated that Mother Marie “remains the legitimate superior” of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in south Arlington, where the nuns reside.

“Their rejection of their legitimate superiors — Mother Marie of the Incarnation, O.C.D., and me as their diocesan bishop — is scandalous and is permeated with the odor of schism,” Olson wrote.  

A schism, in Christianity, is a break of unity within a church — and opinions concerning the nature and consequences of a schism vary among churches. Canon law, a set of rules and policies to govern the Catholic Church, defines a schism as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff (Pope) or of communion with the members of the Church.”

Why would the nuns affiliate with the Society of Saint Pius X?

The sisters’ choice to affiliate with the Society of Saint Pius X is a “surprising development,” said Matthew Wilson, a professor at Southern Methodist University who specializes in politics and religion. He is also the Kairo Endowed Director of the Center for Faith and Learning at the university. 

Wilson said the Arlington nuns would have faced challenges getting someone from the mainstream church to affirm Gerlach’s leadership, rather than Mother Marie, as their superior.

“So that would explain why they reached out to (Society of Saint Pius X) — whose own status is very sort of murky and precarious — that would be willing to affirm what they have done now,” Wilson said. 

The Society of Saint Pius X, which is not officially recognized by the Catholic Church, has been in a schism with the Vatican in the past. 

The Society of Saint Pius X was founded in 1970 by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre following the formation of the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, which is seen as shaping the modern Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II excommunicated Lefebvre and all SSPX priests, declaring a formal schism between the group and the church, after Lefebvre consecrated four bishops in defiance of the Vatican in 1988. 

The SSPX rejects modern ways of living, conducting mass in Latin and requiring women and girls to wear chapel veils, which are circular or triangular-shaped pieces of black or white lace worn draped over the head, when attending mass.

The Vatican has recently attempted to pull the SSPX back into the fold, including a 2016 meeting between Pope Francis and the group’s superior general. Meanwhile, the organization has “continued to publish anti-Semitic materials, flirt with Holocaust denial and reject any reconciliation with the Catholic Church,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

As a cloistered order of Catholic women who wear sandals instead of shoes as a sign of their poverty and simplicity, the Carmelite nuns already follow some traditionalist practices. The sisters pray and worship in isolation at the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, located at 5801 Mount Carmel Drive in south Arlington. 

Why Olson is warning Catholics to stay away from monastery 

The nuns cited a desire to “return to the fullness of our Catholic tradition and to restore all things in Christ, in both our liturgical life and in the way we live our Carmelite vocation,” as their reasoning for affiliating with the Society of Saint Pius X. 

By associating themselves with the society, the Carmelites will have to adopt the “hyper-traditionalist religious practice” of the group, Wilson said. 

“It seems that their desire to have the prioress of their choice is what’s driving the bus here, and questions of doctrine, liturgy, etcetera, seem to be entirely secondary to and subordinate to that,” Wilson said. 

The Arlington nuns announced in their Sept. 14 statement that the monastery’s chapel is open for private prayer, inviting people to join the sisters in the “daily Holy Mass celebrated in Latin.” 

But Olson is warning Catholics to stay away. In July, Olson accused the nuns of having two priests from the Catholic Diocese of Scranton celebrate Mass at the monastery. One of the priests, the Rev. Christopher Clay, has been prohibited from the exercise of priestly ministry since June 2004 following sexual abuse allegations. 

Clay has been previously denied permission to exercise priestly ministry in the Diocese of Fort Worth and is listed on the Diocese of Scranton’s list of credibly accused individuals. 

Members of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth should not participate in “any sacraments” offered at the monastery or contribute any monetary support to the group of sisters, Olson said. Previously, a group of Catholic women and families provided support to the monastery.  

Continued participation would “associate you with the scandalous disobedience and disunity of the members of the Arlington Carmel,” Olson said.

On the path to a schism? 

The Arlington Discalced Carmelite Nuns have not been formally excommunicated, but Olson could do so in the future, making the sisters ineligible to receive the sacraments or to receive the Eucharist, Wilson said. 

To avoid such an outcome, the sisters could disaffiliate from the Society of Saint Pius X, but Wilson said he isn’t sure they have any inclination to do that. 

The more likely option, Wilson said, would be for the diocese to declare the nuns in rebellion — in schism — against the authority of the Catholic Church, as Olson alluded to in his Sept. 17 statement. 

“(Olson) seems to be moving in that direction without quite going there yet, maybe hoping to give them a chance to recant, repent and amend their ways,” Wilson said. “He clearly believes that that’s the direction in which they are moving.” 

Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.