The Discalced Carmelite Nuns, often referred to as the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, have filed a lawsuit in opposition to Bishop Michael Olson and the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, searching for injunctive reduction in opposition to a canonical sexual misconduct investigation initiated by means of the bishop. The lawsuit was once filed after Olson began an ecclesiastical investigation into Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes, accusing her of breaking the Sixth Commandment and violating her vow of chastity with a clergyman out of doors of Fort Worth’s diocese. The Sixth Commandment in the Catholic Ten Commandments prohibits adultery.
The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth launched a remark revealing that an investigation into the alleged misconduct was once initiated on April 24. In reaction, Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes filed civil litigation in opposition to Bishop Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth. The Discalced Carmelite Nuns have now challenged Olson’s authority to behavior this investigation in their filed lawsuit.
The preliminary petition by means of the nuns is an software for a short lived restraining order, a request for an injunction to restrain Olson from his investigation into the monastery, and a declaratory judgment defining the felony courting between the discalced Carmelite nuns and Olson and the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth. The lawsuit additionally seeks no less than $1 million in financial reduction, together with damages, consequences, prices, bills, and lawyer’s charges.
The suit argues that the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity is an independent spiritual establishment beneath pontifical proper established by means of the Order of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel in the past due sixteenth Century, and subsequently, no longer beneath the regulate of Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth. The suit additional claims that Olson tried to impose explicit restrictions and calls for upon the Reverend Mother and Sister Francis Therese, her number one caregiver, which don’t have any foundation in Texas regulation.
The lawsuit highlights a number of circumstances of alleged abuse and additional claims that the movements of Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth have created vital emotional trauma and mental misery for the plaintiffs and the sisters. In reaction, Olson and the diocese have filed a plea that ecclesiastical disputes like this don’t have any position in civil courts and that civil courts don’t have any jurisdiction over them. They argue that the subject will have to be resolved inside the Roman Catholic Church. The defendants additionally spotlight that there’s an ongoing canonical continuing addressing the similar questions raised by means of the monastery, demonstrating that this declare will have to no longer be evaluated by means of a civil courtroom in Texas.