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A nun who was branded a "wh**e" and exiled from her monastery after confessing to sexting a priest has denied she broke her vow of chastity.
Reverend Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach, the former leader of a Catholic convent in Texas, is suing Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson after he claimed she was guilty of breaking her promise to never have sex.
She insists her romance with a priest "never got physical."
The 43-year-old nun, who has chronic health issues that have confined her to a wheelchair and require her to use a feeding tube, admitted to having a raunchy over-the-phone romance with a Montana priest during an interrogation by the bishop back in April.
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"I made a horrible, horrible mistake," she can be heard saying in a recording of their conversation, according to a transcript published by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The recording, which was played out in court on Tuesday, continued as the bishop probed the nun for more details on the scandalous relationship.
"I was not in my right mind, even a nun can fall," she can be heard telling him.
Reverend Jonathan Wallis, Vicar General of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth and Bishop Olson's right-hand man, claimed Sister Gerlach also confessed breaking her vow of chastity to him as he testified in Tuesday's court hearing.
He said Sister Gerlach confessed on three occasions — December 22, December 24 and January 5 — while he was visiting her Arlington convent to celebrate Mass.
He alleged she told him she knew it was a sin but that she was falling in love with the priest, the Daily Mail reports.
The Vicar General also testified that Sister Francis Therese, Sister Gerlach's full-time caregiver, called the fellow nun a "w**re" when she found out about the sexting claims.
When pressed by the bishop during his interrogation in April, Sister Gerlach reluctantly gave up her priest love interest's name — identifying him as Father Bernard Marie, who's also known as Father Philip Johnson.
Father Johnson was "granted leave" from the Diocese of Raleigh in North Carolina before he joined a monastic community in Montana, the Transalpine Redemptorists, in 2022, church leaders told the Star-Telegram.
According to the Diocese of Raleigh, he is "not currently exercising" public ministry.
"[His] priestly faculties were restricted…as a precautionary measure until more clarity regarding his status can be ascertained," they said in a statement said.
Sister Gerlach claims their romance was never physically sexual.
"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," she also said in the recording of the Bishop's interrogation.
Despite this, the nun was booted from the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington on June 1 after the bishop concluded she'd broken her vow, according to a decree of dismissal issued by the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth.
Now she's suing Bishop Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth for $1 million, accusing the bishop of defaming her and invading her privacy by allegedly seizing her phone during the investigation, which he denies.
Sister Gerlach claimed she was in ill health and hadn't been in the right mind during the sexting.
"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," she told him in April.
According to an affidavit, Sister Gerlach also claims she was heavily medicated during her confession to the Bishop as she'd just undergone a surgical procedure.
But in a YouTube video released by the diocese earlier this month, Bishop Olsen claimed "she was clear and lucid and had normal use of her physical and mental faculties".
During the video, the bishop also alleged he'd been given information about illegal drug activity at Sister Gerlach's monastery.
The diocese told the Star-Telegram they have alerted police to "serious concerns" of marijuana and edibles they claim to have discovered inside the Arlington monastery
But sister Gerlach's attorney, Matthew Bobo, has accused the diocese of staging photos appearing to show the drugs.
The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth is arguing the nun's alleged sexting case is an internal church matter and should not be subject to the civil court system.
District Court Judge Don Cosby said he will make a ruling next week as to whether Tarrant County has jurisdiction over the lawsuit or whether it should be left to the Vatican, who are already investigating the incident, Dallas Morning News reports.
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