FORT WORTH, Texas — The priest identified in a recorded interview as the man with whom a nun from Arlington broke her chastity vow is from North Carolina and recently spent time in Montana contemplating his vocation, according to Catholic officials.
The interview where the priest was identified was with the Rev. Mother Teresa Gerlach of the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington. It was played Tuesday during a hearing in a lawsuit Gerlach filed against Bishop Michael Olson and the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese, alleging that Olson defamed her, took information from her personal devices and invaded her privacy.
In an audio recording played during the hearing, Gerlach reluctantly told Olson that the priest’s name is Bernard Marie.
But the Diocese of Raleigh issued a statement Wednesday identifying him as Philip Johnson.
According to the statement, Johnson was “granted leave” from the diocese to serve as chaplain to a religious community in 2020 and later joined the Transalpine Redemptorist Monastery in Montana in 2022.
The diocese also said in the statement that Johnson recently returned to North Carolina after he resigned from the Redemptorist community, where he served under the chosen name of Father Bernard Marie. Johnson is “not currently exercising” public ministry. “Upon returning to N.C., Fr. Philip Johnson’s priestly faculties were restricted by Bishop Luis Rafael Zarama as a precautionary measure until more clarity regarding his status can be ascertained,” the statement read.
In Montana, Chancellor Darren Eultgen, of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, said during an interview with the Star-Telegram that it isn’t unusual for a priest to choose to go by a different name. “We knew him as Brother Bernard,” Eultgen said.
Eultgen also said when Johnson “was living at the monastery, he wasn’t in any sort of public ministry, and he did not say Mass publicly.”
In April of 2022, Johnson came to the Transalpine Redemptorists, a religious community of men near Forsyth, Montana, where he was contemplating “a vocation,” according to the statement from the diocese in Montana.
Eultgen said that on April 26, the diocese in Montana got a call from Fort Worth diocesan officials investigating an incident involving the priest and a “religious sister.”
According to a statement from the diocese in Great Falls-Billings, on April 27, Bishop Michael Warfel “removed the priest’s faculties of ministry.”
Johnson returned to North Carolina on May 1.
According to testimony during Tuesday’s hearing, Gerlach said the priest contacted the Carmelites in Arlington asking for prayers, and that is how they met.
The legal battle between Gerlach and the diocese centers on whether a secular court has jurisdiction in matters involving church investigations. The diocese, which is also conducting a canonical investigation into Gerlach’s actions, argues that courts cannot get entangled in ecclesiastical matters.
Gerlach’s lawsuit states that the diocese and Bishop Olson violated her privacy rights when he took information from electronic devices and that Olson defamed her by posting information about a private confidential matter on the diocese web site.
