Vatican excommunicates Charlotte-area church. What it means for local Catholics

The Vatican’s declaration last Thursday that Society of St. Pius X bishops, priests and formal adherents are in schism lands squarely on the Charlotte region — where roughly 15 area Catholics traveled to Écône, Switzerland, to witness the unauthorized consecration of four SSPX bishops that triggered the action.

The excommunication applies to the newly consecrated bishops, any SSPX priest and anyone who formally adheres to the society. That includes members of St. Anthony of Padua in Mount Holly, the SSPX chapel that has grown from about 150 worshipers at a single Sunday Mass to two overflowing weekend Masses.

Jim De Piante, the chapel’s music director and a lifelong SSPX member, was in the field in Écône when a storm halted the ceremony mid-consecration. He said he does not consider himself separated from the church and expects the action to be overturned through canonical processes.

“I’m going to wake up tomorrow and do exactly the same thing tomorrow that I did today,” he said. “This is not going to have any effect on my life whatsoever.”

For Catholics attached to the older liturgy, the Charlotte landscape has narrowed. The Diocese of Charlotte’s only approved Traditional Latin Mass is now celebrated at the Chapel of the Little Flower in Mooresville, after Bishop Michael Martin implemented his predecessor’s plan to end other diocesan Latin Masses. The Charlotte Latin Mass Community, which once helped Latin Masses spread to more than a dozen locations, saw that expansion reverse after Pope Francis restricted the older rite in 2021.

The diocese did not comment on the Vatican’s declaration. De Piante said online inquiries to St. Anthony’s spiked the same day.

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