‘Mass is not a show here’ — Young Charlotte Catholics respond to liturgy policy

Young Catholics on ‘Traditionis custodes’ in the Diocese of Charlotte

More than 100 young Catholics listened intently to Father Timothy Reid’s homily during the noon Latin High Mass last Sunday, at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Catholics attend Mass on Ascension Thursday at St. Ann Catholic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Courtesy: Augusta Westhoff.

Among them was Patrick Gallagher, a 20-year-old college student, and also Augusta Westhoff, 24.

Just two days earlier, Gallagher and Westhoff learned that Charlotte’s Bishop Michael Martin had announced that beginning in July, Mass would no longer be offered at St. Ann’s parish using preconciliar liturgical rubrics.

Instead, the older form of the liturgy — called the Traditional Latin Mass or usus antiquior, would be offered only at a new, stand alone chapel, more than 30 miles away.

On Sunday, the congregation sat sad, disheartened, angry; listening to their pastor reflect on the new directives.

“I think you all know that I am heartbroken by this,” Fr. Reid began, after explaining the bishop’s decision. “And I know that you are too.”

“Bitterness and despair must find no despair in our hearts,” he continued.

“Don’t allow whatever anger you’re feeling to be sinful. There is a place for just anger over this situation, but your anger should not get the better of you or lead you to make imprudent, brash, or judgmental comments…Let’s not focus on what’s being taken away, but focus on what we’re being given: an opportunity to suffer a deprivation for Christ.”

Westhoff and Gallagher listened carefully.

They told The Pillar later that was exactly the message they needed to hear.

“That homily has definitely been a source of hope,” Westhoff told The Pillar.

“It really helped encapsulate the right way to order our response as Catholics. Father gave three points: to not let your anger become sinful, to recognize this deprivation as a cross, and to pray and fast. I think that a lot of the other young Catholics at that Mass would definitely share those sentiments, and also found hope and comfort in that homily.”

Gallagher sat moved, not just by the homily, but also by his priest’s emotions.

“Fr. Reid was choked up and tearing up a little bit from the pulpit because he knew that his parishioners were going to be torn between choosing their preferred form of liturgy and their fellow parishioners and the pastor,” he said. “It was powerful to see.”

Across the Diocese of Charlotte, small groups of Catholics are grappling with a recent directive from Bishop Martin, which moves the Mass celebrated using the Church’s 1962 liturgical missal out of four parish churches in the diocese where it has been celebrated since 2021.

Among those struggling to make sense of the new directives are young people who say they have cultivated a deep love for the Traditional Latin Mass — and come to love the vibrant community of young adults they have found along the way.

St. Ann Catholic Church Charlotte, North Carolina. Courtesy: Augusta Westhoff.

‘Tradition and beauty in the liturgy’

Several young Catholics who grew up in the Diocese of Charlotte told The Pillar that they had long felt surrounded by tradition in their local church, whether they attended the Traditional Latin Mass or not.

Most of them said the liturgical style in the Charlotte diocese has been important to them.

“Mass is not a show here, we've taken down the TV screens [in the church],” Gallagher said. “All of the Masses I have been to are clear that this is about God, it's not about the priest or the laity. It's about Christ, and that seems to be the general consensus around the diocese.”

“I've traveled to parishes throughout the diocese, as far as Asheville or Sapphire Valley, and all of the parishes have had a beautiful Novus ordo [Mass]. It seems that the more traditional Novus ordo is making a comeback,” he added.

Since his family moved to the Charlotte area in 2008, Oscar Shingledecker, a 21-year-old college student, has come to expect reverent liturgy as the norm in the diocese.

“I would describe Charlotte as a diocese that really wanted to stand for tradition and beauty in the liturgy,” Shingledecker said.

“We were a traditional diocese, where your average Novus ordo parish has an altar rail with a ton of altar servers wearing cassocks and surpluses, we do incense at a lot of our Masses.”

There are more than 550,000 Catholics in the Charlotte diocese, nearly double the Catholic population just 10 years ago. The region’s growth has led to growing parishes of young families. But some local Catholics said that embracing tradition seems to have an effect on parish life, too. They pointed especially to an increase in vocations in Charlotte, and the diocesan college seminary, St. Joseph’s, which opened in 2016.

Before Traditionis custodes - Pope Francis’ motu proprio that placed restrictions upon the celebration of the Latin Mass within dioceses - the Diocese of Charlotte had nine parishes which offered the Traditional Latin Mass regularly.

After Traditionis custodes was promulgated in 2021, Bishop Peter Jugis received permission from the Vatican to allow the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated at four diocesean parishes through October 2025 - St. Ann, St. Thomas Aquinas, Our Lady of Grace in Greensboro, and St. John the Baptist in Tyron.

Despite the restrictions placed by Traditionis custodes, parishes continued to see a growing number of people come to usus antiquior liturgies.

Augusta Westhoff and her fiancé Nicholas Buranicz. Courtesy photo.

“I think a higher attendance rate at the [Traditional Latin Mass] came as a result of Traditionis custodes,” Gallagher said. “I was one of those people who began attending it at that time. I had been infrequently attending the Latin Mass before but then it hit me that ‘Oh this may be on the way out and I don't want to miss this. I want to absorb as much as I can’.”

A vibrant community

While reliable statistics are hard to come by, regular Latin Mass attendees and pastors across the United States say that they have seen rising numbers of young families and young singles attending Sunday liturgies in recent years.

In the Diocese of Charlotte, the same holds true. St. Ann parish has more than 1,100 families registered, and on average 350 people attend the Sunday Latin Mass, according to a parish representative. The representative told The Pillar that the average age of all parishioners is 29 and the majority of attendees at the Sunday Latin Mass are under the age of 40.

St. Thomas Aquinas’ Sunday Latin Mass draws between 300 and 425 attendees from among its 3,000 parish families, according to a St. Thomas Aquinas employee. Its First Saturday and weekly Thursday Latin Masses draw around 250 attendees.

A parish employee told The Pillar that in the past four years, the parish has grown significantly and regularly receives inquiries from families that hope to join the parish because it “offers the Latin Mass.”

Another St. Thomas Aquinas employee shared with The Pillar that “a very large number of young adults come to the Latin Mass,” and roughly 15% of weekly TLM attendees are young adults.

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A number of those young people told The Pillar that a lively young adult community has grown up surrounding the Latin Mass.

“It's a very young, very healthy Church community that you see,” Westhoff said. “There are so many young children, young families, young singles, and obviously the older community as well that all come together for Mass. Outside of the sacraments, there are very vibrant men's groups, women’s groups and a young adult group that does social events like a holy hour / happy hour where young adults do a holy hour and then go out for drinks afterwards.”

Filumena Martin, a 29-year-old elementary teacher, has been attending the Latin Mass for as long as she can remember.

“I have been going to the Latin Mass my entire life,” Martin told the Pillar. “My parents took my siblings and I every week and I have just fallen in love with the beauty and the reverence of the liturgy.”

It was through the Latin Mass and the surrounding community of young adults that Martin met her fiancee, Michael Kissam, a 24-year-old history teacher and master’s student at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Kissam, a native of Charlotte, usually attends ordinary form liturgies at his hometown parish.

But four years ago, he was invited to attend a Latin Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, and since then has been attending Traditional Latin Mass liturgies two to three times a month.

“Before I was invited by a young adult group to attend a Latin Mass it was something I'd never really experienced before,” Kissam told The Pillar.

As a history teacher, “my whole job is to essentially teach and talk about the past and find meaning in history and tradition, [so] I found a certain connection with that ancient form of the Mass that I found particularly meaningful.”

While Kissam does not attend the Traditional Latin Mass every week, he said that every time he shows up, he notices a growing number of young people in the pews.

“I would say it's definitely something that's becoming a much more active part of the Catholic community here in Charlotte,” he remarked.

“There's a lot of people who are my age or younger than me who have become very attached to a very demanding online world. Everything is very stressful from the news to the pressures of social media,” Kissam said. “I know a lot of people who want to get away from those online pressures and find something that they can find meaning in.”

“I think people find that meaning in the Latin Mass. It constantly offers the tradition and reverence that they are looking for as they try to detach from the online world.”

An uncertain future

The young people who attend extraordinary form liturgies in Charlotte had been hoping that by October, their bishop would be able to obtain a Vatican extension to permission which allowed their parishes to offer the usus antiqiuor.

Instead, they say, their communities are being broken up by the diocesan decision to centralize the Traditional Latin Mass at a converted worship space 20 minutes north of Charlotte.

“It was just heartbreaking news,” Westhoff said.

“To realize the person charged with your pastoral care, the father of your diocese, cannot defend the Mass you love, and the Mass the saints loved, is so heartbreaking. I think a lot of young Catholics feel the same way.”

While Bishop Martin has said the new diocesan policy is being implemented to address divisions in the Church, the young Catholics who spoke with The Pillar said they hadn’t experienced division over liturgy among Charlotte Catholics.

Some pointed to parishes offering both the older and current liturgical forms, saying that parishioners respect both forms — and said that among young people, there’s a lot of crossover.

“Our diocese has been very blessed with having reverence that is present in both forms of the Mass,” Westhoff said. “Based on the few places I have lived, I believe we have a model diocese, and I have really loved being in this diocese because I have never had an experience of division between the Novus ordo and the Traditional Latin Mass.”

Kissam, who regularly attends both forms of the Mass, believes the different liturgies can exist side-by-side.

“There is a divide in the sense that each are different expressions of faith,” he said.

“The question is, are those differences contrary to the spiritual health of the faithful? Is it going to lead Catholics to take on positions that undermine their connection with papacy, to undermine their faithfulness to Catholic dogmas? I don't believe that the differences between Novus ordo and the Tridentine Mass have that effect.”

Young adults said they feared that the centralizing policy might itself create new divisions and isolation, as Catholics who attend Latin Mass will potentially leave their parishes each Sunday to congregate instead at the church offering the Traditional Latin Mass.

Some Catholics wondered whether the new rules could push some Latin Mass attendees to attend the local Society of St. Pius X location, staffed by priests who are part of a Traditionalist movement in “irregular communion” with the pope.

“After Traditionis custodes, we lost parishioners from Saint Ann, as some went from St. Ann's to the SSPX chapel near Charlotte,” Gallagher said.

Some young adults who spoke to The Pillar said they will make the drive - close to an hour in some cases — to attend Mass at the new diocesan chapel.

Others said they are still trying to decide, torn between their parish community and the liturgy they love.

“If we want to talk about division, look at the choices that are being made by parishioners at St. Ann’s,” Gallagher said.

“My girlfriend and her family will primarily be going to the chapel in Mooresville. That's what they've determined is best for their family. But for my own formation, I determined that it's best for me to stay with my pastor and my parish.”

“That really hurts because I love being able to go to Mass with my girlfriend and her family and so I have to choose between my pastor and my preferred form of liturgy. It is really quite terrible.”

Jack Figge is a student journalism intern at The Pillar