Vatican reinstates Carmelite nun after bishop’s dismissal

Vatican reinstates Carmelite nun after bishop’s dismissal in Texas over affair with priest

Thursday, May 30th, 2024

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. At the time of the dismissal, Olson said 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.

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