CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (LifeSiteNews) — Traditional Catholics showed up en masse to kneel to receive Holy Communion on the tongue at a Mass with Bishop Michael Martin, OFM of the Diocese of Charlotte and about a dozen other bishops present.
At a concelebrated Tuesday Mass for the Atlanta Province Bishops Conference held at the Cathedral of St. Patrick in Charlotte, North Carolina, almost every single lay Catholic in attendance kneeled to receive the Eucharist — the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ — in a show of support for reverence for God amid Bishop Martin’s crackdown on tradition, Max Stouse told LifeSiteNews.
According to Stouse, about a dozen bishops total were present, including the bishops of the Dioceses of Charlotte, North Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia, among which were numbered Archbishop Gregory John Hartmayer, Bishop John-Nhan Tran, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and Bishop Joel Matthias Konzen.
Stouse’s mother told LifeSiteNews that their purpose was to “show a reverent resistance” to the anti-traditional agenda of Bishop Martin, who had plans to restrict traditional practices within the liturgy, as a draft letter from Martin leaked in May showed. His plans, which included a ban on altar rails and kneelers, were leaked less than a week after Martin announced sweeping bans on the traditional Mass.
“To instruct the faithful that kneeling is more reverent than standing is simply absurd,” he wrote in the document originally published on the blog Rorate Caeli.
Martin stipulated that “in new constructions and renovations of sacred spaces, altar rails are not permitted,” and that “Moveable altar rails should be removed, and permanently fixed altar rails should no longer be used.”
“The placement of a prei dieu (a kneeler) for the reception of communion is not appropriate,” he added.
After the letter was leaked, the diocesan communications director said the highly controversial document “was an early draft that has gone through considerable change over several months” and still remains “in discussion.”
According to The Pillar, although the leaked document has reportedly been largely shelved, sources have shared that Martin still has plans to prohibit the use of altar rails – something that he already enforces in churches as he travels around the diocese – since “that’s his big thing, he’s really focused on that.”
At Tuesday’s Mass, the faithful reportedly recited the St. Michael prayer in unison after Mass, another practice that was discouraged by Bishop Martin in his draft memo:
“This prayer is no longer prescribed in the Novus Ordo Missae. While the intention to defeat the power of Satan and other evil spirits is commendable, its recitation at the end of Mass can lead to the unfortunate doubt that the Eucharistic liturgy is somehow insufficient to bring about the scattering of evil and motivation to do good. If parishes have the custom of praying this prayer communally at the end of Mass, it ought to be done separate from the liturgy and, therefore, no sooner than after the Recessional hymn,” Martin wrote.
We were there to show that a lot of Catholics in the diocese of Charlotte love the traditional Mass and want it to be held onto. We want reverence…to have the traditional Mass eliminated is not what the flock wants,” said Stouse.
