"We are not things to be traded or given away in backroom deals," the nuns wrote in a four-page response to the decree posted to their website Saturday afternoon.

Nuns at an Arlington-based monastery have accused Bishop Michael Olson of "an ugly attempt to seize control of our governance, finances and life."

Arlington nuns at the center of a vicious dispute with the Fort Worth bishop have rejected a Vatican decree to place them under new authority, saying it amounts to a hostile takeover.

As the Vatican tries to settle a chaotic yearlong dispute between a Carmelite monastery and Diocese of Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson, the nuns at the center of the controversy announced they will defy a Vatican decree that delegates their governance to an outside religious association.

The legal battle over who has authority over a small group of cloistered Carmelite nuns and their property is once again escalating after the sisters filed for a restraining order Monday against Bishop Michael Olson,