BELMONT, North Carolina (LifeSiteNews) — Abbot Placid Solari – chancellor of Belmont Abbey College and abbot of its adjoining monastery – waded into the Diocese of Charlotte’s mounting liturgical controversy in his Pentecost Sunday sermon.
Solari defended Bishop Michael Martin and slammed recent leaks of internal policy documents as “works of death, fomenting disunity, perverting truth, and utterly lacking in charity.” It is not clear which “truth” he saw as being perverted.
He took issue with the anonymous nature of the leaks, calling on the congregation to “shun the works of darkness and anonymity.”
“This has gravely damaged trust,” he said, claiming that the “resulting media frenzy” had “gravely injured the peace and unity of this local Church.”
He accused Catholic media reporting on the drastic curtailment of the Traditional Latin Mass and planned elimination of visible signs of piety of being “Church-related political action committees,” stirring division with “jargon, hyperbole, and nearly apocalyptic urgency.”
Praising Bishop Martin’s consultation process, Solari contrasted it with what he described as a “toxic secular political model” now infecting the Church: a power struggle of “competing factions,” “hyper-individualism,” and “relativism.”
Calling the leaks “crude and clumsy plays for power and control,” Solari insisted that Bishop Martin – whose liturgical crackdown had sought to remove altar rails, kneeling for Holy Communion, traditional vestments, and ad orientem worship – had unfairly been labelled “authoritarian.”
According to Solari, “the real problems” facing the Church and the Diocese of Charlotte are “a lack of proper obedience and respect for legitimate authority,” moving people to “feel free to pick and choose what teachings they choose to accept, what authority they regard as legitimate.”
Meanwhile, Bishop Martin has invited Fr. Casey Cole OFM – a priest and social media figure – to move to the diocese with two other friars. Cole, who “almost never” prays the Rosary and has made clear that he will never say the TLM, has been widely criticized by faithful Catholic for his views on divorce, sacramental Confession, and homosexuality.
Solari described one of the two leaked documents as “an anonymous letter last fall, presuming to give Bishop Martin instructions as to how to exercise his office as bishop.”
It is not clear whether this is a reference to the first document leaked in May, but Solari’s description is difficult to reconcile with what appears to be guidelines for priests in dealing with Catholics unhappy with suppression of the TLM in Charlotte diocese.
Solari himself has led Belmont Abbey since 1999 and plays a direct role in formation. He describes Belmont Abbey College as a place where students “seek the truth in all aspects of life,” grounded in the Benedictine spirit of hospitality, stability, and mutual charity.
