Vatican suppresses Texas Carmelite community
December 03, 2024
» Continue to this story on Fort Worth diocese
CWN Editor's Note: The Vatican’s Dicastery for Religious has issued a formal decree suppressing the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, the Fort Worth diocese has announced.
In a statement released December 2, Bishop Michael Olson said that “the women who continue to occupy the premises in Arlington are no longer nuns because they have been declared ipso facto dismissed from the Order of Discalced Carmelites for reasons of their notorious defection from the Catholic faith.” The monastery “exists no longer,” he said, regardless of the stand taken by the occupants.
While the sisters of the monastery have sought pastoral support from the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, Bishop Olson said that any Mass celebrated there is illicit, and it is “gravely wrong for Catholics knowingly to assist at these Masses.”
Bishop Olson has been locked in a dispute with the Carmelites for months, beginning when he announced that the community’s superior had violated her vow of chastity. The bishop said that his disciplinary intervention had “consistently been guided by charity, patience, and has been in accord with the instructions of the Holy See.” The sisters of the Arlington community counter that the bishop ignored their canonical rights and the serious health concerns of their superior—who was recovering from surgery when he launched his investigation of the community.
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