Posted on 06/03/2025 6:06:29 PM PDT by ebb tide
Thank you to all Catholics who reached out to request a reprieve -- and to all authorities who asked the bishop of Charlotte, Michael Martin, to be reasonable in his struggle against the Traditional Latin Mass. Did he get a phone call about his restrictions? Apparently...
Here's hoping this minor reprieve will be extended indefinitely. (Notice important point near the middle of the article: "In the interim, Bishop Martin said, should the Vatican issue any official changes to Traditionis Custodes, the diocese would abide by those instructions.")
From his diocesan newspaper:
CHARLOTTE — Changes to Traditional Latin Mass offerings in the Diocese of Charlotte will take effect Oct. 2 to align with a deadline mandated by the Vatican – not July 8 as previously planned, Bishop Michael Martin announced Tuesday.
The new date allows more time for the transition and for renovation of a chapel designated for the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) community, Bishop Martin said in an email to priests Tuesday.
The move is the final phase of the diocese’s gradual implementation of Pope Francis’ 2021 instruction, Traditionis Custodes, which prescribes limits on the Traditional Latin Mass in dioceses around the world but allows bishops to set up alternate worship sites.
The diocese is setting aside a chapel in Mooresville for celebration of the TLM, which averages approximately 1,100 regular attendees each week. They currently worship at four diocesan churches using the older form of the Mass, which uses prayers and a calendar predating the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The changes were set to take effect in conjunction with the diocese’s annual clergy assignments on July 8, which include the appointment of Father Brandon Jones as TLM chaplain.
On Tuesday, however, Bishop Martin accepted a request from the four parish priests that he wait until the Vatican’s deadline of Oct. 2 to implement the changes. The extra time will allow the pastors to accompany people through the transition and for renovations to the chapel to be completed, the bishop and the pastors agreed.
“It made sense to start these changes in July when dozens of our priests will be moving to their new parishes and other assignments,” Bishop Martin told the Catholic News Herald. “That said, I want to listen to the concerns of these parishioners and their priests, and I am willing to give them more time to absorb these changes.”
Extensive renovation work is already under way at the chapel in Mooresville, and diocesan construction officials said they expect it to be ready this October.
In the interim, Bishop Martin said, should the Vatican issue any official changes to Traditionis Custodes, the diocese would abide by those instructions. [Emphasis added by Rorate] A June 24 meeting for TLM supporters at the new chapel site in Mooresville has also been postponed.
In 2023, in the wake of Pope Francis’ instruction, then-Bishop Peter Jugis ended TLM celebrations at five of the diocese’s nine parishes with small numbers of followers. Four larger congregations – St. Ann and St. Thomas Aquinas in Charlotte, St. John the Baptist in Tryon, and Our Lady of Grace in Greensboro – received a temporary extension from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. That extension expires on Oct. 2, and Bishop Martin said the diocese will not seek a further extension.
TLM worship will be consolidated at the Mooresville chapel, with two Masses offered on Sundays and other holy days of obligation using the 1962 Roman Missal, and the option of adding another Sunday Mass if needed in the future.
The chapel, at 757 Oakridge Farm Hwy. in Mooresville, is strategically located between the diocese’s two largest population centers, Charlotte and the Triad. The diocesan-owned property includes a 5,000-square-foot church that seats 345 and a school/gym building. It is adjacent to Curlin Commons, the diocese’s affordable senior apartment community.
Renovations, overseen by the diocese’s Construction and Real Estate Office, include a new ceiling, flooring, lighting, sanctuary refitting, pews with kneelers, restroom installation, and full repainting. Once finished, the chapel will be consecrated and appropriately appointed for traditional liturgies.
The $700,000 renovation is being funded by the diocese.
Only a spiteful, frankenbishop would refuse to request an extension. Another "shepherd" who hates his flock.
Ping
Everyone with any connection to Charlotte or NC needs to write the Holy Father and beg him to set this hireling shepherd on the straight and narrow.
Is it just a coincidence that the same day (today), that Pope Leo receives Arthur (Cock)Roche in a private audience, that Martin pauses his TLM restrictions?
I happen to know Bishop Martin personally. We went to the same high school in the 1970s in Baltimore, a hotbed of liberal Catholicism, run by Archbishop Borders. He was three years behind me. The school is and was run by the same Franciscan order of which he is now a member. I got to know him as an adult when my sons attended the school and he was its president. He was a good president of the school. He was universally loved and respected by both the boys and the parents.
When now-Bishop Martin and I attended the school, Masses were frequently said with us sitting on the floor in a circle in a classroom. The priest would use one of the classroom desks as an altar. “Here Comes the Sun”, by the Beatles, would be playing on the phonograph as a hymn. We would pass the ceramic paten with the Hosts around and either take one for ourselves, or sometimes we would give it to the next guy. This is true, and not an exaggeration.
I grew out of that. Mike Martin, on the other hand, joined the OFM Conv. right out of high school, as was common then (I almost did, myself) and his college and seminary professors, and his Religious superiors were the same priests who had said those kinds of Masses I described above. They formed his priesthood. It’s all he knows.
That being said, he is a good man, and the friars there are good men. Very much in love with God, and they go out of their way to minister the sacraments to whoever needs them. When my mother was dying in a nearby hospital, her priest could not come for some reason. So I called the school and asked for a priest to come. The president of the school immediately interrupted a board meeting and came to the hospital to administer Last Rites. It was not Fr. Mike at that time, but there’s not a doubt in my mind that he would have done the same. I’ve related that story to several of my fellow alumni, and have heard many similar stories.
Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer was also a priest at the same high school when my younger brother attended. My brother spent many months in the hospital in his junior year, and Fr. Gregory made sure he was well taken care of, academically, spiritually, and socially. Our family is forever grateful to him.
Still, knowing what I know about his liturgical formation, I was fearful for the people of the Diocese of Charlotte when Fr. Mike was appointed bishop.
All that to say this: the Franciscan friars are good men. They are generous with their time, their gifts, and themselves. They tend to be a bit sketchy liturgically, but they do love the souls under their care.
In this situation, I chalk it up to the following:
1. His poor liturgical formation.
2. Much of his priestly experience has been spent teaching high school boys, and it shows.
I’m disappointed by his decisions in Charlotte, but not surprised. But I know where they come from. And they come from a lack of wisdom and prudence, not from a lack of charity. He is a good man at heart.
And his charity and zeal for souls will cover a multitude of sins. He is not perfect, and perhaps he doesn’t have the experience, wisdom, or prudence to be an effective bishop. But he is a good man who is trying to do his best. He needs our prayers, and perhaps some fraternal correction from some of his fellow bishops.
I'm sorry, but I've seen neither charity, nor a zeal for souls, in Martin's recent dictatorial actions concerning both the TLM and the Novus Ordo.
He's been a bishop for just over a year and he's an example of the saying, "Power corrupts".
I appreciate your perspective, and, on some level, I can relate. I’m not going to name names, but I’m personally acquainted with one of America’s leading liberal cardinals. To his credit, I know that he has, in the past, shown genuine personal kindness to members of my own family. And yet, objectively, as a “prince of the Church,” the man is and has been a loser. He’s famous for pandering to the LGBT lobby as well as downplaying pro-life causes in favor of his leftist politics. He too is and has been an enemy of the TLM.
At the end of the day, do goodness and kindness on a “micro” level outweigh tyranny, iconoclasm and faithlessness on a “macro” level? Sadly, no, I don’t think they do. I’d rather have a bishop or cardinal who’s a nasty bastard on a personal level, but one who upholds the faith and faihtful on a general basis.
If a guy's a bit grouchy, I don't much care. As I told him to his face, he can't tell the sheriff to take me to the lockup. I guess he could excommunicate me, but I doubt he'd use canon law that way. :-)
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