Charlotte bishop suppresses Latin Mass by relegating it to Protestant Christian center

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Charlotte bishop suppresses Latin Mass by relegating it to Protestant Christian center
Charlotte Bishop Michael Martin cited Pope Francis’ Traditionis Custodes in his decision to shut down Latin Masses,

 a devastating blow to faithful across North Carolina.



Sharon Kabel

May 23, 2025
(LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted- not all hyperlinks included from original]) — Bishop Michael T. Martin of Charlotte, North Carolina announced Friday he will be shutting down traditional Latin Masses at parish churches in his diocese — four in total — and merging them into one non-Catholic chapel, citing Traditionis Custodes.

The traditional Catholic social media account Sensus Fidelium posted a copy of the letter to X on Friday morning explaining that the decision shutters two diocesan TLM parishes in Charlotte at St. Ann and St. Thomas Aquinas as well as one in Tyron (St. John the Baptist) and one in Greensboro (Our Lady of Grace).

Bishop Martin shared that, effective July 8, the traditional Latin Mass will no longer be offered at parish churches in the diocese but instead will be moved to a designated “chapel” at 757 Oakridge Farm Highway in Mooresville, a Protestant center (Freedom Christian Center).

Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes states that TLMs are not to be celebrated in “parochial” churches.

The DC Rosary Rally for the Latin Mass X account decried the decision as “evil” and called for Pope Leo XIV to “restore Summorum Pontificum immediately.”

The TLM previously held in Boone was suppressed as of Jan. 9, 2024, along with those at few other Catholic churches in the diocese. Charlotte’s previous bishop, the outspokenly conservative Bishop Peter Jugis, had announced in December 2023 that due to Traditionis Custodes, the number of Sunday Latin Masses would be reduced from six to four, and that the remaining four would only be allowed to continue until 2025.

As Bishop Martin noted in his letter, Bishop Jugis — who had overseen the growth of TLM locations, including a new minor seminary that offered training in the old rite – had obtained Vatican approval of a continuation of diocesan TLMs until 2025.

Latin Masses offered by priests of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) will continue at St. Anthony of Padua in Mount Holly, near Charlotte. The Charlotte Latin Mass community has noted:

The Holy See has, on various occasions, written that the Masses of the SSPX are valid and that the faithful who attend them fulfill their Sunday and Holy Day obligations. The Holy See has even written that in justice, we are free to contribute to their collections at Mass.

It remains to be seen whether Pope Leo XIV will reverse any of Francis’ restrictions on the TLM.

“The fight ain’t over yet,” declared the moderator of the Sensus Fidelium account. “We’ll hit Rome up. Bishop probably thinks if he puts it in no mans land (away from everyone) that nobody will go and it’ll die off. He doesn’t get the people have more heart.”

“They’re robbing us,” lamented X user Atticus Isidore, who said the Greensboro TLM “attracts people from as far as Graham.” Greensboro is an hour and half’s drive from downtown Charlotte, and Tyron is two hours from Charlotte.

Traditionis Custodes, which has led to the suppression of dozens of Latin Masses around the world, has been denounced by clergy and scholars as a repudiation of the perennial practice of the Catholic Church and even of solemn Church teaching.

Cardinal Raymond Burke has affirmed that the traditional liturgy is not something that can be excluded from the “valid expression of the lex orandi.”

“It is a question of an objective reality of divine grace which cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority,” wrote the cardinal in 2021.

Liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has also implored priests to resist Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying Responsa ad dubia “regardless of threats or penalties,” since obedience to these documents would undermine the very mission of the holy Catholic Church.

Kwasniewski has made the point that “the traditional liturgical worship of the Church, her lex orandi (law of prayer),” is a “fundamental” “expression of her lex credendi, (law of belief), one that cannot be contradicted or abolished or heavily rewritten without rejecting the Spirit-led continuity of the Catholic Church as a whole.”

‘The traditional Mass belongs to the most intimate part of the common good in the Church. Restricting it, pushing it into ghettos, and ultimately planning its demise can have no legitimacy. This law is not a law of the Church because, as St. Thomas [Aquinas] says, a law against the common good is no valid law,’” he said in a speech at the 2021 Catholic Identity Conference.

He quoted the solemn words of St. Pius V’s bull Quo Primum, which authorized the traditional Mass in “perpetuity.” Quo Primum states:

(I)n virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We likewise declare and ordain … that this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remains always valid and retains its full force …

Would anyone, however, presume to commit such an act (i.e., altering Quo Primum), he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

Respectful communications to the Diocese of Charlotte can be submitted here.

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See also: Leaked memo: Charlotte diocese asks priests to do damage control over Latin Mass suppression

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Charlotte bishop delays Latin Mass restrictions after intense backlash
Bishop Michael Martin announced Tuesday that he will postpone his severe limitations on the Traditional Latin Mass until October.



Rome, September 7, 2017. Celebration of the Holy Mass vetus ordo, Mass in Latin, in the days of the pilgrimage Summorum Pontificum decennial
Shutterstock

Jun 3, 2025
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted]) — After massive backlash, Bishop Michael Martin of Charlotte, North Carolina, has extended the date that his restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass will take effect from July to October.

The embattled bishop had decreed last month that the Latin Mass must cease at all four parishes in the diocese that continue to offer it by July 8.

However, Martin announced in an email on Tuesday that he has accepted a request from the priests of the four parishes to delay the restrictions until October 2, the deadline set by the Vatican to implement Pope Francis’ anti-Latin Mass norms in Traditionis Custodes.

Martin said that the diocese “would abide by” any changes to Traditionis Custodes if the Vatican promulgates them, according to the Catholic News Herald.

The bishop has designated a former Protestant chapel adjacent to an “affordable senior apartment community” as the sole location at which the Traditional Latin Mass may be celebrated, the Herald noted.

The diocese is spending $700,000 to renovate the building for “Catholic worship.”

“It made sense to start these changes in July when dozens of our priests will be moving to their new parishes and other assignments,” 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.”

Popular traditional Catholic publisher TAN Books, which is located in Charlotte, highlighted the news of the extension, adding, “We thank everyone for their prayers and ask for your continued support in the preservation of the Latin Mass!”

Martin, who was appointed to the diocese by the late Pope Francis last year, has faced international criticism for his crackdown on the Latin Mass as well as for planned liturgical norms that would have banned the use of Latin even in the Novus Ordo liturgy and other reverent and traditional practices.

The diocese later said that those guidelines, which violate Vatican documents and even those of the Second Vatican Council, were a “draft” and have been revised following pushback.