A priest who was barred from Fort Worth churches more than two decades ago and later resurfaced to lead an illicit Latin Mass for Arlington's Carmelite nuns has now been formally dismissed from the priesthood. Christopher Clay submitted a petition for dismissal to Pope Leo XIV in March, and Bishop Michael Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth says Clay now lives privately in Dallas, no longer able to celebrate Mass or confer any sacraments.
The dismissal closes out a saga that Bishop Olson and diocesan officials have been tracking since at least 2004, when Clay was first prohibited from celebrating any sacrament in the territory of the Diocese of Fort Worth, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. That original 2004 ban followed the diocese's discovery that Clay had been quietly celebrating Mass for over a year at St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church in Arlington while under investigation in Pennsylvania, according to a 1994 report from Bishop Accountability tracing the Fort Worth diocese's early response. Clay had been placed on leave by the Diocese of Scranton in February 2003 following a 2002 allegation that he sexually abused a minor.
The Star-Telegram's report notes that Fort Worth Bishop Kevin Vann went further in 2012, issuing a formal decree that barred Clay from representing himself as a Catholic priest anywhere and from setting foot on any Catholic property within the diocese, according to the Detroit Catholic. Despite those repeated bans, Clay led an unauthorized Mass for the Arlington Carmelite nuns in 2024, an act that Bishop Olson publicly disclosed that July alongside news that another suspended Scranton priest, Marshall Roberts, had also been celebrating Latin Mass for the community without permission or faculties.
A Monastery Already at War With the Diocese
The nuns who welcomed Clay into their chapel were, by that point, deep in a separate and bitter standoff with their own bishop. Former prioress Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach had invited the suspended Scranton priests to celebrate Mass at the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, per Bishop Olson's own statement to the faithful of the diocese, released in July 2024. That invitation came against the backdrop of a dispute that began in April 2023, when Olson opened a canonical investigation into allegations that Gerlach had broken her vow of chastity with a priest — a conflict that later spilled into civil court when the nuns filed a $1 million lawsuit against Olson over his seizure of electronic equipment during that inquiry, according to reporting cited by Where Peter Is.
By September 2024, the rift had widened further. The Arlington Carmelites formally affiliated with the traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X, prompting Bishop Olson to warn Fort Worth Catholics that attending Mass at the monastery now carried the “odor of schism,” the same report notes. Three months later, the Holy See issued a decree suppressing the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity outright, stripping it of its ecclesiastical status after months of unauthorized sacramental activity there.
A Trail That Led Back to Pennsylvania
Clay's presence in Arlington was never simply a local aberration — it was tied to a scandal that predated his arrival in Texas by years. He was ordained in 1998 and affiliated with the Society of St. John, a traditionalist priestly group founded in the Diocese of Scranton that same year by former members of the Society of Saint Pius X before it collapsed in the early 2000s amid its own sexual abuse and financial misconduct scandals, per Where Peter Is. The Diocese of Scranton later listed Clay on its public roster of credibly accused clergy in 2018, designating him as permanently removed from ministry, following a statewide grand jury investigation that named him among dozens of Scranton clergy accused of child sexual abuse.
That grand jury report, released by the Pennsylvania Attorney General in August 2018, identified more than 1,000 victims and named over 300 accused priests across six Pennsylvania dioceses. The matter was far from resolved, either: in November 2024, Bishop Olson disclosed that the Diocese of Scranton had opened an investigation into a second child sexual abuse allegation against Clay, noting that church officials initially struggled to locate him in order to serve canonical papers, according to Where Peter Is.
Dismissal Finalized, Bishop Urges Vigilance
With Clay's petition for dismissal now granted, the Diocese of Scranton has issued a statement regarding his removal from the clerical state, and Bishop Olson has said Clay now lives privately in Dallas. Olson is urging anyone who becomes aware of Clay attempting to exercise priestly ministry to contact the Fort Worth diocesan chancery office at 817-945-9315.
The dismissal formally resolves Clay's individual canonical status, but it does not answer how he was able to continue operating in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for so long despite bans stretching back to 2004 and 2012, nor does it settle broader questions about how independent traditionalist factions continue to draw on rogue or defrocked clergy for sacraments the institutional Church no longer recognizes as valid within its own structures.
