CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic high school in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, has removed the kneeler in its chapel due to the directives of Bishop Michael Martin, OFM.
“Beginning this week, the kneeler in our chapel will be removed,” states Christ the King Catholic High School’s internal update about school liturgies, posted by the Charlotte Latin Mass Community on X. The memo adds that all are “still welcome to receive the Holy Eucharist either on the tongue or in the hand, while kneeling or standing, according to your personal devotion.”
“The autocratic rule & attack on the existing liturgical reverence here continues,” said the Charlotte Latin Mass Community X account, which earlier shared that “students and staff knelt on the floor anyway and received.”
Catholics in the Diocese of Charlotte have steadfastly shown reverence for our Lord in the Eucharist despite Martin’s directives. At a Mass this summer, Catholic faithful overwhelmingly kneeled to receive Holy Communion from Martin during a Confirmation Mass after he planned to ban altar rails and kneelers. About two weeks later, traditional Catholics showed up en masse to kneel to receive Holy Communion on the tongue at a Mass with Martin and about a dozen other bishops present.
The letter from Father Aaron Huber, the chaplain of the high school, lists other changes that will be made to the school Masses, including the training of two students to serve as “extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.”
“Our bishop values the opportunity this provides for students to participate more deeply in the sacred liturgy,” wrote Fr. Huber. This practice of regularly using “extraordinary” Eucharistic ministers is contrary to the tradition of the Catholic Church, unbroken until after the Second Vatican Council, which only permitted priests to administer the Blessed Sacrament for the lay faithful to receive. This is because only priests’ hands have been consecrated for the handling of the sacred Eucharist and its own consecration.
The changes at Christ the King’s school Masses will include the use of a projector screen in the gym to “display hymn lyrics and the longer prayers of the Mass,” in order “to help students fully enter into prayer,” a common practice at Novus Ordo Masses and particularly school Masses.
This is contrary to the current policy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)’s Committee on Divine Worship, that “permission is not granted to project readings and liturgical texts on screens during the liturgy.”
“The bishops have the perspective that since so many people spend much of their time looking at screens, the Sacred Liturgy ought to be a prayerful break from that experience,” the USCCB website explains. “The bishops also believe that screens are a distraction from what is actually taking place in the liturgy.”
The Mass is the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, re-presented to God the Father in an unbloody manner — the holiest event on earth.
Fr. Huber’s letter also states that one student will be invited to give a testimony of “how God has worked in their life” at each school Mass “just before the final prayer and blessing.”
In late May, a draft was leaked of a letter from Martin detailing plans for restrictions on traditional practices within the liturgy, including a ban on altar rails and kneelers, 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 claimed 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 was reportedly largely shelved, sources shared that Martin still planned to prohibit the use of altar rails – something that he already enforced in churches as he travels around the diocese – since “that’s his big thing, he’s really focused on that.”
In 2018, then-prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Cardinal Robert Sarah criticized reception of Holy Communion in the hand and standing as part of a “diabolical attack” on faith in the Eucharist and praised receiving Communion on the tongue and kneeling.
In the recently released Bread Not Stones documentary, Catholics of the Diocese of Charlotte opened up about the Traditional Latin Mass’s (TLM) impact on their lives and their heartbreak over the suppression of the TLM in their parish churches, ordered by Martin.
