Letters, Documents, and Discussion Section
Since entering into full communion in the Catholic Church in April of 2017, the visionary of Our Lady Mystical Rose of Argyle has--without exception--walked in complete humility and obedience to the Church and to every legitimate direction given to her by her Bishop and the Diocese of Ft. Worth. Neither she nor the Dry Bones group have ever spoken out or taken a public position against the Bishop or anyone in the Diocese of Ft. Worth. Rather, the group prays daily for the Bishop and all at the Diocese for their successful leadership of the flock. The visionary and the group have always acted in love, humility, and honesty in every action--as they strive to do in every interaction with every person, everyday. Sadly however, this has not always been reciprocated. Over the course of 2019 in particular, the visionary and the group have been publicly maligned, defamed, and misportrayed by many individuals, both inside and outside the Diocese, and numerous and repeated attempts have also been made to silence and discredit the visionary and the group.
For example, on April 1, 2019, the visionary was finally given an appointment to speak personally with her local Bishop after she had humbly and repeatedly been requesting to meet with him since May of 2017. She had met with other individuals from the Diocese on a number of occasions since May 2017, including regular meetings with a priest who was assigned personally by her Bishop to be her priest spiritual director. She had been meeting regularly with this priest spiritual director since August 2017--over 20 months--and the priest relayed all information from each of their meetings immediately and directly to the Bishop. Interestingly, this priest confirmed his stated belief on numerous occasions that the visionary's experiences were authentic and valid, and he also personally witnessed and documented on at least one occasion that the visionary's stigmata wounds began to bleed in his presence without any natural explanation.
However, despite the priest's discernment that the visionary's experiences were authentic, the Bishop continued to refuse to meet with the visionary. It wasn't until April 1, 2019 when the Bishop finally met with the visionary in person--and this occurred only after another bishop had contacted him and inquired about the status of the messages and why there did not seem to be an ongoing investigation when the apparitions and messages seemed to be credible in nature.
During that April 1, 2017 meeting with her Bishop, the visionary personally gave copies of the seven sanctity of life messages from Our Lady Mystical Rose from 2017 (which the Bishop had already received through the priest spiritual director), and she also gave the Bishop copies of newer warning messages, including messages from Christ and others about wolves in the Church. These warning messages included discussion about wolves near to where the messages were given who were preventing the messages of His Mother from coming forward. In some of those warning messages, Christ was emphatically calling for an accounting from the shepherds, and Christ said the messages would now go forward.
In the April 1, 2017 meeting, the visionary sensed that the Bishop seemed particularly interested and greatly bothered that other bishops were now aware of the apparitions and the messages she had received, and he asked her how those other bishops came to be involved. She stated that the Blessed Mother had asked her to put the messages in her Bishop’s hands, and after almost two years, she hadn’t been afforded that opportunity to put them in his hands despite numerous requests. However, she was led to other bishops and she was finally able to put them in the hands of these other bishops. The Bishop quickly answered “oh, that’s ok” and he stated that she had done nothing wrong and she remained in complete obedience to the Church. He reiterated that again at another point, saying that she had always been in complete obedience and had never done anything wrong.
After meeting with her for only 18 minutes, he dismissed her and said he would set up another meeting. However, the Bishop did not follow through on that promise. Rather, after she left the Bishop gave the visionary's Pastor (also in attendance at that meeting) a directive to immediately meet with the entire Dry Bones group, and in that meeting between the Pastor and the Dry Bones members (on April 3, 2019), the Bishop demanded (through the Pastor)--in clear and direct violation of divine law and canon law--that the Dry Bones ministry was to cease meeting immediately, that they were to cease all events and charitable activity, and they were not even to make reference to the Dry Bones group. He also stated that since he assigned a priest spiritual director for her, that the visionary's lay spiritual director was no longer to refer to himself as her spiritual director, another violation of canon law.
It should be noted however, that never once up to that point had the Bishop or anyone else ever accused any member in the group of teaching or saying anything incorrect, heretical, or contrary to the Catholic Church and its teachings. On the contrary, the group has only ever spoken in complete harmony with Catholic doctrine, and only ever acted with great love and charity for the community. Because of this--and because the group is private and has a canonical and divine law right to meet as any other private group does (see cann. 215-216, 225, et al.)--the group asked for a canon lawyer's opinion on these directives. The group's canon lawyer, Philip Gray, JCL, informed the group that these directives clearly violated the canonical rights of each member of the group, and since it was outside the scope of the Bishop's authority to make such demands, his directives were improper and illicit, and thus, no obedience was owed to them. The canon lawyer responded to the Pastor and Bishop on April 18, 2019 stating as much and the canon lawyer requested a response from the Pastor and Bishop regarding these strange directives. Unfortunately, no response was ever received, and no follow-on meeting was offered by the Bishop.
In August of 2019, the Bishop came into possession of a video taken at Loreto House of a purported miracle that appeared to have been fabricated. The Bishop sent an email to the visionary on the afternoon of Thursday August 22, 2019 and requested a meeting with the visionary and the visionary's lay spiritual director on the following day, Friday August 23, 2019. The visionary initially sent an email response stating that they would meet the following day, however because of the very short notice and existing work commitments, the lay spiritual director was not able to make the appointed meeting time. As such, a fax was sent prior to the meeting notifying the Bishop of a need to reschedule the meeting. However, rather than rescheduling, the Bishop elected not to meet with them, and instead the Bishop released a Diocese-wide letter on Monday morning August 26, 2019 stating that the visionary was a fraud and that the apparitions were not worthy of belief. Sadly, this was done without any investigation into the actual facts and context surrounding the video, and inexplicably, was done without even a conversation with the visionary or anyone else in the group, when the facts and numerous credible witnesses (including priests in his own diocese) would have actually testified that the Bishop's conclusion was incorrect.
The Bishop's actions in this case demonstrate not only a grievous lack of judgment in making a declaration without a proper investigation, but also a complete lack of pastoral care, as well as a violation of the right to privacy and the right to a good reputation (can. 220) for the visionary and the group. This rush to judgment and subsequent errant decision was based on one piece of information which was knowingly presented without proper context, and this decision was made without consideration of any other facts, accounts, eyewitness testimony (including from numerous priests and lay persons throughout the Diocese from the previous two-and-a-half years), and evidence of supernatural events. These actions were an egregious violation of divine law, canon law (cann. 210-216, 218, 220, 221, 225, 227, et al.), and civil law.
The Bishop's actions were also undertaken with blatant disregard for the souls of the faithful in the Diocese of Ft. Worth who were unnecessarily scandalized and hurt by what was released without having the benefit of an investigation which would have demonstrated the wrongness of his conclusions. Because of this unlawful and egregious lack of judgment in publicly releasing an unverified an un-investigated piece of information in a libelous and defamatory manner, and in his action making a public declaration against these apparitions without a full and proper investigation, the Bishop has wrongfully engaged in calumny, libel, and defamation against the visionary and the group, and he has fallen well short of the expected behavior of a shepherd in this matter.
On September 6, 2019, canon lawyer Philip Gray, JCL, released a public statement in response to the Bishop's actions. Mr. Gray's response can be found here.
Despite these egregious actions, the visionary and the Dry Bones group continue to love and pray for Bishop Olson and the Diocese of Ft. Worth, and they pray that the full truth is brought to light so that the world may know that these messages have been brought from Heaven for the benefit of the world.
Because important and pertinent information such as what has been presented above was not made available to the faithful of the Diocese of Ft. Worth, this section of the website has been created in order to present such information and give context to events that have occurred and have either not been reported by the Bishop or the Diocese, or have been incorrectly reported by various sources, including the Bishop and the Diocese of Ft. Worth.