Did the Arlington Carmelites sell their own monastery?

The Carmelite nuns of Arlington, Texas, made headlines again this week, as CBS News reported that the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity had been given to a non-profit foundation made up of the community’s benefactors and supporters — reportedly to prevent Bishop Michael Olson from attempting to seize the monastery’s property for diocesan use.

The property was reportedly transferred in April, in the same month that nuns rejected the Vatican’s designation of a U.S. Carmelite federation to oversee them, amid an ongoing dispute with Bishop Olson.

But the move to transfer property raises some canonical red flags — and points to a controversial practice in Church leadership.

In April 2023, the Discalced Carmelites of Arlington, Texas, found themselves in a dispute with their bishop, who had launched a canonical investigation into alleged conduct of Mother Teresa Agnes of Jesus Crucified Gerlach, O.C.D, who had allegedly admitted to violating her vow of chastity with an initially unnamed priest.

Lawyers for the community and Gerlach, both civil and canonical, have said that her supposed admission of an affair was made following a serious medical procedure, under the influence of painkillers, and when she was in and out of lucidity.

But the issue escalated, coming to involve a million-dollar lawsuit filed by the nuns against Olson, images released by the Fort Worth diocese purporting to show tables inside the monastery strewn with large amounts of drug paraphernalia, and the Vatican’s involvement, supporting Olson and ordering new leadership for the monastery.

The dispute eventually saw the nuns formally announce an association with the Society of Pius X, a de facto traditionalist association of priests which has been described as having “imperfect communion” with the Apostolic See.

The nuns this month also announced the re-election of their former superior, Mother Teresa Agnes, in defiance…

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In Texas, our Civil Law regarding property takes precedent over Canon Law. FWIW, unless something has changed, these monasteries are self supporting, and receive no money from their respective dioceses.

Of course, the nuns can be subsumed which it seems the Bishop already tried, and under Francis’ revised rules for Religious, Cors Orans, it removes the autonomy for monasteries.

There are some Archbishops and Bishops who use this to acquire property, sell it, and reap the $$$.

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