Among the compensations of life in a cloistered monastery, an existence defined chiefly by its deprivations, is the chance to live in a world largely devoid of bureaucracy. There are no trips to the DMV, no school district websites to navigate, no neighborhood association meetings to sit through. And since many monastic orders, no matter where they are in the world, answer directly to the Vatican, they are largely insulated from the multilayered officialdom that rules the rest of the Catholic Church, with its hierarchy of priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. So it was unusual when, one afternoon this past spring, the bishop of Fort Worth called the Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach, prioress of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, and…
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