In Charlotte, Catholics May Have to Give Up the Old Ways

It’s not Sunday morning, but the Rev. Matthew Buettner still proceeds down the aisle of St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Tryon, North Carolina, accompanied by 15 servers in white and black vestments. Beneath arches of burnished dark brown wood and ceiling tiles adorned with seashells and fleurs-de-lis, the priest circles the Italian marble altar, swinging a thurible of aromatic incense to bless the sanctuary.

Over 50 people are gathered in the pews for a traditional Latin Mass on a Tuesday to honor the feast day of the church’s patron saint. The celebration proceeds much as it would have 500 years ago. 

Buettner offers nearly all of the prayers with his back to congregants, who listen in attentive silence. When there is music, it’s the unadorned vocal melodies of Gregorian chant; the only English comes during his homily.

This way of worship is an outlier in the Diocese of Charlotte, which covers the western half of North Carolina and its roughly 565,000 Catholics. The vast majority of congregations here and across the world use the “Novus Ordo” Mass, Latin for “new order,” which was adopted in 1969 after the church’s Second Vatican Council. At the time, church leaders, including Pope Paul VI, believed the liturgy needed to be updated for the modern era, with an emphasis on active participation and the use of vernacular languages like English. 

Over the past several decades, however, a small but increasing number of Catholics have been seeking out the old Mass. Charlotte has proven a particular hotbed of traditional enthusiasm since 2013, when St. Ann Catholic Church began hosting the area’s first Sunday Latin Mass since the 1960s. The Charlotte Latin Mass Community, an online group devoted to the liturgy, has swelled from 50 families to roughly 1,200; four parishes now hold regular Latin Masses.

Many of them were taken aback when Charlotte Bishop Michael Martin released a letter on May 23 outlining plans to severely cut back traditional liturgy. Instead of asking the Vatican to extend permissions his predecessor had secured in 2023, Martin planned to end them in July, three months earlier than the permissions were set to expire. Traditional liturgy would only be allowed at a single chapel in Mooresville that is currently undergoing major renovations.

Martin cited former Pope Francis, who in a 2021 order had expressed worries that the movement for Latin Mass was causing divisions within the church. “It is my heartfelt desire and prayer that this implementation of [Francis’s order] will further ‘promote the concord and unity of the Church’ among the People of God in the Diocese of Charlotte so that, as Jesus prayed to His Father, we ‘may all be one,’” the bishop wrote.

But for traditionalist Catholics such as Brian Williams, a parishioner at St. Ann’s and founding member of the Charlotte Latin Mass Community, Martin’s plan seemed designed to quash a vibrant movement.

“It’s just the most ironic thing ever: For the sake of unity, you all must leave now,” Williams quipped. He believes the change will break up thriving communities and may drive devout worshippers out of the diocese.

Countless Catholic commentators quickly took up Williams’s theme, often in even more strident language. “Michael Martin of Charlotte has initiated a new chapter of confusion for the Catholic Church in America,” wrote author Taylor Marshall to over 214,000 followers on X. Catholic publications The Remnant, National Catholic Register, The Pillar, and Catholic News Agency covered the story; even National Review featured it in an article titled “Charlotte and the Ghost of Pope Francis.”

Martin did not directly address the fallout. But on June 3, he told the official diocesan newspaper that he’d push back the Latin Mass restrictions to October, their original timeline, which would give traditionalist parishioners and clergy “more time to absorb these changes.” He also said that he would abide by any overriding instructions from the Vatican.

That move now puts the faithful’s attention on Pope Leo XIV, who took office only weeks before Martin’s letter, and how he will respond to the bishop of Charlotte. Whether or not Leo chooses to intervene, the outcome will reverberate across the entire church, sending a signal of whether he sees Catholicism’s future in progress or the past.

The New Old Way

Precise figures for the recent growth of the Latin Mass are hard to verify. The Pew Research Center, a leading nonprofit pollster on religious issues, didn’t include questions on the topic until this year. But informal surveys and anecdotal reports show particular interest among new converts and young people. The Diocese of Charlotte estimates that 1,100 Catholics attend weekly services in Latin, which is less than one percent of regular worshipers.

Williams said he became interested in the Latin Mass soon after converting in 2006. He’d been attending Charlotte’s St. Matthew Catholic Church, which boasts the biggest membership of any U.S. parish, but the size and approach to worship felt too much like a Protestant megachurch.

“It was weird to me, having been Lutheran for a little bit before I converted, that the Catholic church I was going to was less formal,” Williams recalls. “It was like going to Disneyland when you’re looking for Harry Potter World at Universal—it’s a whole different park.”

When Rev. Tim Reid, a traditional-minded assistant priest at St. Matthew, was promoted to pastor of nearby St. Ann in 2007, Williams and his family followed. Reid received permission to celebrate the Latin Mass occasionally in 2008, giving Williams his first personal encounter with the old rite. He says its silence, humility, and reverence were unlike any liturgy he’d found before, a worship that truly honored the mystery of God.

Rev. Jason Barone, cofounder of the Charlotte-based Latin education nonprofit Veterum Sapientia Institutum, hears similar themes from many other attendees. “Using the Latin language helps you feel smaller than you are, that you’re part of a universal and timeless church whose theology does not change,” he said. “It can lend itself to a greater reverence for one’s service in the church, and a guard against pride in thinking that we can bring in new ideas that are alien to the Gospel.”

Other clergy, including Martin, feel differently. In a leaked draft letter proposing other changes to worship, the bishop wrote that Latin Mass excluded many of the faithful and was too often associated with the rejection of current practice. 

“I find it disturbing that so many pastors and celebrants are inclined to force an unknown language on their congregation when the Lord’s mission is to engage the lost,” Martin wrote. “Latin diminishes the role of the laity in the Mass. They are deprived of the full, conscious, and active participation of which they have a lawful right.”

The Media and the Message

The Latin Mass represents much more than an aesthetic preference for the Catholics who lead and attend its services. It is often tied to a more conservative theology, which in turn shapes their lives beyond church walls.

Disagreements over the traditional liturgy have their roots in long-simmering tensions among church leaders over how Catholicism should respond to modernity. Brandon Bayne, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, traces the conflict to the current pope’s namesake, Leo XIII, who led the church in the late 19th century.

The earlier Leo, Bayne explains, published a hugely influential 1891 letter titled “Rerum Novarum”—Latin for “Of New Things”—which outlined the church’s position on topics like labor unions, private property, and government’s responsibility to the poor. The document inspired many clergy and lay activists to seek greater engagement with the modern world; it also provoked reactions from those who emphasized the church’s authority, hierarchy, and traditional values.

“That begins to mark general tracks of conservatism and progressivism within the Catholic Church,” said Bayne. He adds that the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, aimed at making the Mass more accessible, “became a totem for crystallizing those tensions.”

The popes immediately preceding Leo XIV exemplified the ideological divide. Benedict XVI, regarded as a conservative thinker devoted to traditional doctrine, greatly expanded permissions for the Latin Mass in 2007. Francis, who focused his papacy on contemporary issues like social justice and climate change, revoked that decision in 2021. 

Hard figures on how that divide is currently manifesting are scarce, but the limited available research indicates that Latin Mass worshippers are significantly more conservative, both  theologically and politically, than the mainstream American church. One study of U.S. Catholics who attended the Latin Mass at least annually found that 77 percent leaned Republican, compared with 53 percent of all Catholics. Moreover, 85 percent of them oppose abortion in all cases, versus just 10 percent of the general Catholic population.

In the popular cultural imagination, traditional Catholic liturgy is strongly associated with conservative ideology, said Lauren Horn Griffin, a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Louisiana State University. She points to high-profile figures like Vice President JD Vance, conservative commentator Candace Owens, and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, all Catholics who have spoken approvingly of the Latin Mass.

Crying Out to Heaven

This spring, social media lit up with the news of Bishop Martin’s moves on the Latin Mass in Charlotte. The Catholic News Herald’s Facebook post announcing his initial letter drew nearly 400 comments—by far the most engagement of anything posted in months. The Charlotte Latin Mass Community’s Facebook page had a 386 percent jump in traffic over the following month.

While Williams says his group didn’t coordinate any organized response, other local organizations did. The Carolina Traditional Liturgy Society encouraged its members to pray for “preservation of the Traditional Latin Mass,” as did a new group calling itself Faithful Advocate, which also created a formal petition that drew nearly 1,700 signatures and initiated a nationwide campaign to send letters to the new pope.

Faithful Advocate’s leaders declined to identify themselves in response to a request for comment, beyond saying they are a self-funded group of laymen operating in the Charlotte Diocese who seek “great discretion” in their advocacy. “We are open to the direction of the Holy Spirit regarding how and whether we expand our work,” the group wrote in an email. “Our hope is that Pope Leo XIV will take action and Faithful Advocate will soon no longer be needed.”

The group also shared a letter that appears to have been written by the four pastors of the diocesan Latin Mass parishes, which asked the bishop to reconsider. The Assembly reached out to each of the priests for comment; they either did not respond, declined to be interviewed, or directed inquiries to diocesan officials.

Diocesan spokesperson Liz Chandler did not respond to multiple emails, texts, and phone requests for comment. The most publicly available detail regarding Martin’s position comes from a set of leaked talking points sent to Charlotte-area priests outlining “responses to concerns.” (While the diocese hasn’t acknowledged creating the talking points, they haven’t disavowed them either.)

Although the bishop “accepts that this is a time that will be difficult for some” and pledges to work with local pastors “to try to bring about healing where there is hurt,” the memo reads, “that will not mean a lifting of the Church-imposed restrictions.”

Waiting on Rome

The Diocese of Charlotte has said nothing on the issue since early June, and permissions for the four parish churches are still set to expire October 2. Although bishops of other dioceses in similar circumstances have asked for leeway from the Vatican—and, at least in the case of the Diocese of San Angelo in Texas, received it—there’s no indication that Martin will do the same.

Without further action in Charlotte, any change to the situation would have to come from Rome. Pope Leo hasn’t yet weighed in on how he views the Latin Mass. But some traditionalist observers have seen sympathetic signals in the new pontiff’s attire and public use of Latin. And pressure for action has only intensified after a leak of Vatican documents in early July that appeared to contradict statements Pope Francis had made in support of his own restrictions.

Bayne, the UNC religion professor, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Leo moved to expand Latin Mass permissions as a gesture of reconciliation. “The message he wanted to spread from the very first day is that he’s going to try to be someone who finds ways of achieving unity within the larger Catholic family,” Bayne said.

Without papal action, Charlotte’s traditionalist Catholics will face some tough choices. Some may attend the new Mooresville chapel, which is 30 minutes to two hours away from their current parishes; others might forgo Latin worship to stay. Some might drive across the state line to South Carolina’s Diocese of Charleston, which currently offers regular Latin Masses at Prince of Peace in Taylors.

Williams said most of his fellow Latin Mass congregants haven’t been talking about the options. Instead, they’re choosing to hope and pray that the status quo will stay in place. But should nothing change before October, he and his family will likely move to St. Anthony of Padua in Mount Holly, a chapel run by a group of traditionalist priests who operate outside of diocesan structures. They already attend Mass there on occasion.

“Everybody’s sacrificing and making a tough choice,” Williams said. “If your intent is to stay at your parish, where you’ve been for years and given money for years and raised your kids and made your sacraments, nobody wins with this.”

Daniel Walton is an Asheville-based freelance reporter covering science, sustainability, and political news. He was previously the news editor of Mountain Xpress and has written for The Guardian, Civil Eats, and Sierra. Contact him at danielwwalton@live.com.