Bishop Michael Olsen of Fort Worth, Texas, has issued a public statement defending his intervention in a Carmelite monastery.
In a videotaped message, the bishop said that his increasingly ugly dispute with the Carmelite community should not be played out in “inappropriate venues,” such as a civil court of “both social and mainstream media.” Nevertheless he offered his own public rebuttal of “baseless and false claims” that have been levelled against him.
Bishop Olson decried the “salacious” coverage of the dispute in the media. The diocese had contributed to that coverage with a charge that the Carmelite superior, who is confined to a wheelchair, had committed a sin of impurity with an unnamed visiting priest. And the bishop provided more material for sensational coverage by repeating that the diocese had been informed about allegations of marijuana use at the monastery.