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Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth was in court on June 27th, as his defense argues that a civil court has no jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit filed by Carmelite nuns in the diocese. The nuns challenge that the bishop defamed them, invaded their privacy, and stole information from their electronic devices. The material was seized from them during a canonical investigation earlier this year.
The Judge in the civil case, Dan Cosby explained in court that he needs to review evidence in the case before deciding on the jurisdictional question.
Bishop Olson dismissed her from Carmelite religious life on June 1st (See statement and video below), since he was appointed on May 31st as the “pontifical commissary” of the Arlington monastery by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
In the recording, the bishop asks Gerlach whether she had committed a “violation of the Sixth Commandment … with a priest” and she admits to that. However she relates, “most of this was over the phone,” and later insisted that her contact with the priest was over the phone.
As the bishop explained that he had initiated a canonical investigation, Gerlach told him: “Bishop, I need to tell you something. I don’t know how to explain this, but this did not happen in person. At all. It was all over the phone. So, he did not come down here,” Gerlach said.
“The truth is that he was not down here.” Olson told her that she had “changed the story,” adding, “we have a hard time with the truth.”
Gerlach clarifies that her health problems, for which she was given heavy medication in 2022 and early 2023, and in the hospital for some medical procedures. “I promise you, Bishop. At the time, I was having seizures, and I was really in a very difficult position. And I think my brain just got really messed up,” Gerlach explains. “And Bishop, I really got very confused,” the nun said on the recording. “I was not in my right mind.”
“Well, I understand it,” the bishop said, “even more so then, why you shouldn’t be prioress.” The bishop then read a decree initiating his canonical preliminary investigation of the nun.
The nun’s lawyer has previously said that his client’s supposed admission of sexual misconduct came while Gerlach was under the influence of fentanyl and other heavy medications.
Father Jonathan Wallis, vicar general of the Fort Worth diocese, also testified at court that Gerlach had told him on three occasions in late December and early January that she had broken her vow of chastity.
Wallis said that, on one of those occasions, Gerlach had expressed that she was “nervous about being late” — suggesting that the nun, 43, believed at the time she might be pregnant.
Matthew Bobo, the nuns’ attorney, did not dispute that testimony.
But the testimony does not clarify what, precisely, Olson believed was the delict, or canonical crime, that Gerlach had committed.
“Really, the sake of the whole Carmel is at stake here, you understand that. And I appreciate you telling the truth,” Olson said, while the nun insisted “I was in a really bad state.”
“I understand,” Olson said, “and that’s just a bad state for the burdens of leadership and judgment.”
Olson told Gerlach that her medical state had, in his view, disqualified her from leadership in the Carmelite community, and possibly from continuance in religious life.
“The illness, to the point which you’re articulating now, has influenced your judgment so much as to lead you into objectively grave sin, twice, and so that shows you can’t maintain that office. And, see, and then there’s the question of the whole religious life as well. Because the canons are very strict on this.”
“Really the burdens of office and leadership are lifted from you right now.”
“I love you all very much,” Bishop Olson added in the tape. “There but for the grace of God go any of us.”
“The bishop testified that three employees of the Carmel came to him with concerns about [Gerlach] because the bookkeeper had found receipts for items from an Arlington smoke shop, because they detected the smell of marijuana and saw the usual amount of prescription drugs.” (See Video below)
“The bishop testified that the diocese immediately reported the information and provided the photos to the Arlington Police Department. The diocese does not know the status of the Arlington investigation,” he added.
The Diocese of Raleigh sent The Pillar a statement in response, and named the priest directly.
“Fr. Philip Johnson is a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh who was granted leave from the diocese to serve as chaplain to a religious community in 2020 and who later joined the Transalpine Redemptorist Monastery in Montana in 2022,” the diocese said.
“He recently returned to North Carolina after resigning from the Redemptorist community where he served under the chosen name of Fr. Bernard Marie. Fr. Philip Johnson is not currently exercising public ministry. Upon returning to N.C. , Fr. Philip Johnson’s priestly faculties were restricted by Bishop Luis Rafael Zarama as a precautionary measure until more clarity regarding his status can be ascertained.”
DECREE OF DISMISSAL OF REVEREND MOTHER TERESA AGNES (GERLACH) OF JESUS
CRUCIFIED, O.C.D. The Pillar reports that, in the hearing the Fort Worth diocese’s legal representatives played a tape for over 30 minutes, where Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach, age 43, is questioned by Bishop Olson. During the recording, from April, she acknowledges an inappropriate sexual relationship with a priest, and stressing that it was “all over the phone,” and that the priest had not physically visited the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas.
Gerlach also identifies the priest as Fr. Bernard Marie (his religious name - now Fr. Philip Johnson), whom she said was a member of a religious community; Gerlach said she had met when the priest when he wrote to the monastery asking for prayers.
The monastery released a statement (See below) on June 27th that the priest is not a member, but rather a diocesan priest who spent a “few months” as a novice in their Montana monastery.The Judge in the civil case, Dan Cosby explained in court that he needs to review evidence in the case before deciding on the jurisdictional question.
Bishop Olson dismissed her from Carmelite religious life on June 1st (See statement and video below), since he was appointed on May 31st as the “pontifical commissary” of the Arlington monastery by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
In the recording, the bishop asks Gerlach whether she had committed a “violation of the Sixth Commandment … with a priest” and she admits to that. However she relates, “most of this was over the phone,” and later insisted that her contact with the priest was over the phone.
As the bishop explained that he had initiated a canonical investigation, Gerlach told him: “Bishop, I need to tell you something. I don’t know how to explain this, but this did not happen in person. At all. It was all over the phone. So, he did not come down here,” Gerlach said.
“The truth is that he was not down here.” Olson told her that she had “changed the story,” adding, “we have a hard time with the truth.”
Gerlach clarifies that her health problems, for which she was given heavy medication in 2022 and early 2023, and in the hospital for some medical procedures. “I promise you, Bishop. At the time, I was having seizures, and I was really in a very difficult position. And I think my brain just got really messed up,” Gerlach explains. “And Bishop, I really got very confused,” the nun said on the recording. “I was not in my right mind.”
“Well, I understand it,” the bishop said, “even more so then, why you shouldn’t be prioress.” The bishop then read a decree initiating his canonical preliminary investigation of the nun.
The nun’s lawyer has previously said that his client’s supposed admission of sexual misconduct came while Gerlach was under the influence of fentanyl and other heavy medications.
Father Jonathan Wallis, vicar general of the Fort Worth diocese, also testified at court that Gerlach had told him on three occasions in late December and early January that she had broken her vow of chastity.
Wallis said that, on one of those occasions, Gerlach had expressed that she was “nervous about being late” — suggesting that the nun, 43, believed at the time she might be pregnant.
Matthew Bobo, the nuns’ attorney, did not dispute that testimony.
But the testimony does not clarify what, precisely, Olson believed was the delict, or canonical crime, that Gerlach had committed.
“Really, the sake of the whole Carmel is at stake here, you understand that. And I appreciate you telling the truth,” Olson said, while the nun insisted “I was in a really bad state.”
“I understand,” Olson said, “and that’s just a bad state for the burdens of leadership and judgment.”
Olson told Gerlach that her medical state had, in his view, disqualified her from leadership in the Carmelite community, and possibly from continuance in religious life.
“The illness, to the point which you’re articulating now, has influenced your judgment so much as to lead you into objectively grave sin, twice, and so that shows you can’t maintain that office. And, see, and then there’s the question of the whole religious life as well. Because the canons are very strict on this.”
“Really the burdens of office and leadership are lifted from you right now.”
“I love you all very much,” Bishop Olson added in the tape. “There but for the grace of God go any of us.”
“The bishop testified that three employees of the Carmel came to him with concerns about [Gerlach] because the bookkeeper had found receipts for items from an Arlington smoke shop, because they detected the smell of marijuana and saw the usual amount of prescription drugs.” (See Video below)
“The bishop testified that the diocese immediately reported the information and provided the photos to the Arlington Police Department. The diocese does not know the status of the Arlington investigation,” he added.
The Diocese of Raleigh sent The Pillar a statement in response, and named the priest directly.
“Fr. Philip Johnson is a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh who was granted leave from the diocese to serve as chaplain to a religious community in 2020 and who later joined the Transalpine Redemptorist Monastery in Montana in 2022,” the diocese said.
“He recently returned to North Carolina after resigning from the Redemptorist community where he served under the chosen name of Fr. Bernard Marie. Fr. Philip Johnson is not currently exercising public ministry. Upon returning to N.C. , Fr. Philip Johnson’s priestly faculties were restricted by Bishop Luis Rafael Zarama as a precautionary measure until more clarity regarding his status can be ascertained.”
June 1, 2023
Upon conclusion of an investigation initiated on April 24, 2023, the Most
Reverend MichaelF. Olson, Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth and Pontifical Commissary of the Monastery
in Arlington, Texas, found the Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes (Gerlach) of Jesus Crucified,
O.C.D. (née Lisa Marie Gerlach), Prioress of the Monastery, 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. Therefore, as Pontifical Commissary of the Monastery in Arlington,
Texas, and as the Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth, Bishop Olson dismissed Mother
Teresa Agnes from the Order of Discalced Carmelites in accord with cann. 695 §1 and
699 §2 CIC. She has thirty days to appeal this decision to the Dicastery for Institutes of
Consecrated Life and Societies of the Apostolic Life.
Statement concerning the priest named in the evidence of Bp Olson of Fort Worth, Texas.
Statement
The priest named in the evidence of Bishop Olson of Fort Worth, Texas was at our house in Montana for a few months with the permission of his diocesan bishop, Bishop Zarama of Raleigh, North Carolina.
As a novice, he was not a member of the Transalpine Redemptorist Religious Order.
He was and remains a priest of the diocese of Raleigh.
He was not engaged in public ministry.
He resigned as a novice and returned to his diocese on May 1st 2023.
Statement given on 27 June 2023.
Sources:
—
https://fwdioc.org/statement-fort-worth-diocese-6-1-23.pdf
Statement concerning the priest named in the evidence of Bp Olson of Fort Worth, Texas.
Statement
The priest named in the evidence of Bishop Olson of Fort Worth, Texas was at our house in Montana for a few months with the permission of his diocesan bishop, Bishop Zarama of Raleigh, North Carolina.
As a novice, he was not a member of the Transalpine Redemptorist Religious Order.
He was and remains a priest of the diocese of Raleigh.
He was not engaged in public ministry.
He resigned as a novice and returned to his diocese on May 1st 2023.
Statement given on 27 June 2023.
Sources:
—
https://fwdioc.org/statement-fort-worth-diocese-6-1-23.pdf
and the embedded Videos
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