The Danger of Equating the Church with the Mass

He probably didn’t need to do it. At first glance, he doesn’t look the part. He has a warm smile, a rosy complexion, and eyes that have a happy, joyful glint. He seems to embody the expression “good man.” In his official portrait he’s wearing the traditional black episcopal regalia and the venerable San Damiano pectoral cross. Had he used Pope Francis’s “pastoral cross,” showing not the Crucified Christ but Christ the Shepherd, you could perhaps say, “Well, we all saw it coming.” But he didn’t, so you couldn’t.

Nevertheless, that smiling, seemingly harmless and reasonably moderate new bishop, the Most Excellent Michael T. Martin, O.F.M. Conv., pulled the plug on the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Juridically, Bishop Martin was more than justified. In his official statement, he said he was doing nothing more than implementing, as obedience to Rome required, the norms of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’s controversial motu proprio that put an end to the liberties of Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio that allowed parish priests to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) without episcopal approval. This meant sending all TLMs in his diocese to a chapel in Mooresville, some 30 miles from downtown Charlotte. Though His Excellency said “the name of the chapel is yet to be determined,” it has a name. It’s the Freedom Christian Center, formerly a Protestant gathering place.

Could the bishop have been any clearer? The TLM is not welcome in his diocese. What followed was fierce uproar. There was no shortage of commentators giving their views on the subject, and the absolute majority was negative. The traditionalist community is, after all, as vocal as it gets on the Internet.