(LifeSiteNews) — An SSPX church on the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina is planning to build a new chapel due to growing numbers of attendees after the Latin Mass-suppressing orders of Traditionis Custodes.
St. Anthony’s in Mount Holly, within the geographical bounds of the Diocese of Charlotte, announced last week that Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) leadership has green-lighted an effort to search for land where a new chapel can be built.
Big news for Saint Anthony’s! The SSPX has approved us to begin seeking land for The New Saint Anthony’s. God is powerfully at work in Charlotte – faith, families, and devotion are exploding. Pray with us as we take this next step, and come experience the fullness of Catholic… pic.twitter.com/qoTDahzPPR
— Saint Anthony of Padua (@SAPCarolinas) November 17, 2025
Jim De Piante, project manager for the new St. Anthony’s Church, told LifeSiteNews its chapel has experienced slow but steady growth since Traditionis Custodes was published. The motu proprio, issued by Pope Francis, states that Traditional Latin Masses (TLMs) are not to be celebrated in “parochial” churches, and Bishop Michael Martin accordingly announced in May that the four remaining TLMs in the Diocese of Charlotte were to be suppressed and merged into one new chapel.
The suppression took effect October 2, when families packed the new TLM chapel in Mooresville to overflowing, numbering 625 people. However, the chapel, Little Flower, only seats about 350 people. Bishop Martin has admitted it is not meant to fit all the TLM-goers in the diocese.
Since October 2, the numbers attending the diocesan TLM at Little Flower has plummeted, averaging an attendance of about 370-400 over the past few Sundays. Meanwhile, attendance at the SSPX Mass at St. Anthony’s has grown, as numbers shared by De Piante show. By late October and early November, about 100 more people were attending St. Anthony’s than had been in early July.
De Piante shared that the spike in attendance at St. Anthony’s this past Sunday was due to a wedding there.
The Charlotte Latin Mass community has noted that the Holy See has written multiple times that “the Masses of the SSPX are valid and that the faithful who attend them fulfill their Sunday and Holy Day obligations.”
De Piante shared with LifeSite a statement that sums up the SSPX community’s aim for a new church:
“We are going to create a place of distinct beauty and lasting permanence. It will glorify God in its magnificence and it will serve as a font of sacramental grace and Christian life for his people for countless generations. It will be the seedbed of saints.”
Readers can get a glimpse of liturgical life at St. Anthony’s on its Instagram, Facebook, and X social media pages, and find Mass times on its website.
Those interested in the new St. Anthony’s church may sign up for email updates here.
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 stressed that the Latin Mass was “never juridically abrogated,” and that it is not permissible for a Pope to pretend to wield “absolute power” to “eradicate a liturgical discipline.”
The Latin Mass thus “cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority,” the cardinal wrote in 2021.
Liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has also implored priests to resist the Latin Mass-throttling of Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying Responsa ad dubia “regardless of threats or penalties,” because obedience to these documents would undermine the very mission of the holy Catholic Church.
He noted that St. Pius V’s bull Quo Primum has permanently authorized the traditional Mass.
