(LifeSiteNews) —Regina Magazine released a teaser trailer for its upcoming documentary film about the Traditional Latin Mass crackdown in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The film, Bread Not Stones, captures the stories and lives of Catholics who deeply cherish the TLM and will suffer from the forthcoming ban on the Latin Mass in parish churches to be enacted across the Diocese of Charlotte on October 2.
“This is one of the first films to document the impact of Traditionis Custodes upon a faith community,” the Charlotte Latin Mass Community explained on its Facebook page. “It removes the polemics and simply shows real people, with real names and faces, who love tradition and who will be impacted most by the banishment of the Latin Mass from all parishes … ”
In May, Bishop Michael T. Martin of Charlotte announced he would shut down traditional Latin Masses at parish churches in his diocese – four total – and merging them into one chapel, citing Traditionis Custodes. The motu proprio states that TLMs are not to be celebrated in “parochial” churches.
The decision shuts down TLMs in two diocesan 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). Atticus Isidore has noted that the Greensboro TLM “attracts people from as far as Graham.” Greensboro is an hour-and-half drive from downtown Charlotte, and Tyron is two hours from Charlotte.
The new TLM location will be a former Protestant church in Mooresville, about 40 minutes north of downtown Charlotte, forcing many families to drive long distances, “often with many young children in tow,” as Regina Magazine has pointed out.
Bishop Martin’s shuttering of TLMs has sparked a particularly impassioned outcry from Catholics in his diocese as well as outside it, in part because he doubled down in defense of the TLM closures and even planned to ban altar rails and kneelers less than a week after he announced sweeping bans on the traditional Mass.
Regina Magazine has noted that Bishop Martin has implemented Traditionis Custodes in a more severe manner than in many other dioceses, and that he “could have sought an extension” but chose not to do so.
The Regina Magazine site says the film is “dedicated to all parishes throughout the world who have had their beloved communities shattered by the implementation of Church policy” as laid down in Pope Francis’ Traditionis Custodes, “which has either misunderstood or misrepresented the true nature of the faithful’s love of the Vetus Ordo. (old order)”
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.
Kwasniewski has 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.
