The open letter below was written by a mother in the Diocese of Charlotte who attends one of the parishes impacted by Bishop Michael Martin’s liturgical agenda. It is my sincere hope that her respectful appeal finds its way to Bishop Martin and that he takes her words to heart.

Merry Christmas, Bishop Martin. I hope you have had some time of respite during this busy but beautiful season! 

I used much of my time of prayer and reflection to try and understand your ministry. I’ve been perusing recent livestreams you’ve been at, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and one particular sermon made me reflect, and I would love to hear your response.

Back in September, when you installed Fr. Patrick Cahill as pastor of St. Matthew Catholic Church, you began your homily with an analogy of soft crabs.

Firstly, I appreciated your words about how parishioners can serve their parish. It is more than just coming once a week and punching your Sunday Mass card. We should expect families to be motivated to do good works for the parish and for the community.

My fascination now is how you apply your own sermon to your personal spiritual journey, particularly when you spoke about vulnerability and stepping out of comfort zones.

What makes you  uncomfortable? Is it Latin? Is it distributing Holy Communion at the altar rail? Is it anything that resembles traditional practices of Catholics? Is it the spiritual life of many of your faithful? Is it the genuine love of Christ the priests in the diocese have — to preach the gospel and call for repentance without watering down doctrine? Is it the large number of vocations that have been fostered in the rich fertile soils of authentic Catholic tradition?

Who has the hardened shell? Who does not engage in dialogue? Who has refused to understand? Who sent a form letter in response to their flock’s concerns? Who has their stake in the ground?

“I’m in need of conversion. I’m in need of a change of heart.” I am quoting you directly, dear bishop.  

I simply ask you, your Excellency, to abide by what you say — by practicing what you (literally) preach. I challenge you to be uncomfortable. I challenge you to listen to your well trained priests. Maybe even sit in choir at a Latin Mass at Little Flower Chapel. I challenge you to distribute Holy Communion at the rail at least once. You’ll find faithful who kneel and receive in the hand, and stand and receive on the tongue. But you haven’t even attempted to allow distribution at a rail as long as you are Celebrant. 

I challenge you to let go of the breath you have been holding, and put down the axe you have been using to dismantle everything at once — try and persuade the faithful to change the way they worship instead of force.

Uniformity is not unity, and it’s causing more division than we have ever felt. It’s making young men second guess their call to the priesthood by adding extra hurdles to their call.

It’s causing the priests to make difficult decisions that they shouldn’t even need to make. Should they obey you and deny the faithful their requests, thus breaking canonical rights of the faithful, or should they ignore these new mandates and leave them on unsteady ground with you?

Much of the country suffers parish closures and overworked priests. You inherited a diocese rich with vocations. There’s an old saying that goes “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” What do you presume will happen with all of these changes happening at once? 

Please don’t be the hard shelled crab, your excellency. Have a blessed new year! Be assured of our constant prayers.

The following excerpt is from the above referenced homily. This is only a small portion since the homily was nearly twenty minutes long, but can be viewed here in its entirety, beginning at the 22 minute mark of the video.