TRYON, N.C. — Hours before the bishop of Charlotte’s restrictions on the traditional Latin Mass went into effect, members of a small parish tucked in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Tryon, North Carolina, gathered Thursday evening for one final Mass celebrated in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.

After Mass, as members of the congregation chatted in the church courtyard, several shared with the Register their sense of loss that their regular participation in the liturgy they had raised their children in — and that some had moved here for — was coming to an end.

Still, none of the parishioners interviewed indicated that they have plans to leave their parish, even if that means giving up the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) for what many of them call the “new Mass,” the Novus Ordo or ordinary form of the Mass. 

Tanya Wolfe, whose seven children have grown up with the TLM at St. John the Baptist, told the Register she has no plans to find another parish.

“We’ll stay here. This is my family — my church — and I’m going to pray, pray, pray that it comes back,” Wolfe told the Register.

Bishop Michael Martin’s May 23 announcement that he planned to restrict the pre-Vatican II liturgy in the diocese sent a thunderbolt through the four parishes that had been permitted to continue celebrating the TLM after Pope Francis issued Traditionis Custodes, the 2021 motu proprio restricting the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Mass. 

The bishop’s plan mandated that the four parishes would no longer be permitted to celebrate the TLM and that the ancient liturgy would be restricted to a single non-parish chapel in the diocese. 

The TLM, Bishop Martin announced Sept. 26, would be offered only on Sundays and holy days of obligation at the Chapel of the Little Flower in Mooresville, a more-than-two-hour, 95-mile drive from Tryon. 

In his letter to the diocese, Bishop Martin emphasized that the designated TLM chapel was not meant to replace one’s parish — with a capacity of 350 people, it would in any event not be able to accommodate everyone who had attended Latin Masses at their parishes.

“I encourage you to see Little Flower Chapel as you would a shrine chapel that you might visit for Mass on occasion while participating regularly in the life of your regular parish,” Bishop Martin wrote.

St. John the Baptist parishioner Peter Brunk told the Register he and his wife will continue to belong to the parish, but on Sundays, he said, he plans to cross state lines to attend Latin Mass at Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Taylors, a suburb of Greenville, South Carolina, which is a 50-minute drive from Tryon.

“It’s not what we want to do at all. We’ll do anything to avoid it, but that’s what we’re going to do for the time being,” Brunk said.

Brunk and his wife moved to North Carolina from Illinois a year ago in order to make St. John the Baptist and its TLM their home parish. 

“We spent everything. We bought land; we bought the house,” he said. “We came here for this, and it’s summarily been taken away.”

He has since written more than 20 letters to the bishop, pleading with him to make accommodations for their parish, he said.

“He’s answered one of them with a form letter, the same form letter that he answered other parishioners who wrote to him,” he said. “He doesn’t listen to us. His mission is to enforce Traditionis Custodes and tough beans for us,” he said.

Elena Gonzalez, a mother of nine, four of whom were altar servers at the evening’s Mass, told the Register that she consoles herself with the thought that this is part of God’s plan. Otherwise, she said, it doesn’t make sense. 

“It’s so sad that the Latin Mass is leaving, but I have so much hope that all this will be for good, because perhaps the Lord is allowing us to save souls and offer this up for a lot of people who are suffering,” she said.

“Because it’s incomprehensible to me that we can’t worship God the way we should,” Gonzalez said. The Gonzalez family had moved to the Tryon area from Asheville to be closer to the Latin Mass at St. John the Baptist. 

Gonzalez is committed to staying because, she said, “this is our home.” But they’re also staying because of the example of their pastor, Father Matthew Buettner.

“We’re hoping that something will change, and we will have the Latin Mass again. I trust Father Buettner, which is why we’re staying here,” she said. “We want to support him because he’s being obedient to the bishop, which, to me, is an act of humility and virtue. We want to stand by him.”

Carl LeBlanc’s 7-year-old son Charlie has been training to be an altar server at St. John the Baptist for the past two years. The younger children at St. John the Baptist are gradually given more responsibility until they are allowed to assist the priest at the altar.

“They sit in choir and watch, learn how to sit still, learn how to just get the rhythm of the whole thing, and then eventually they get to go on the altar. And they’ll start with the easier jobs first,” LeBlanc said.

On Thursday night, Charlie served his first Mass as a full-fledged altar server, but, according to his father, he was feeling “very sad” about it also being the last Latin Mass allowed at the church.

LeBlanc spoke about the impact of the Latin Mass on his family, particularly his children.

“I’m a father of six kids, and I just can't imagine taking away something that is so good for the souls of my kids. And that’s what it feels like. It feels like a father that just doesn’t actually care about us and what’s actually good for us,” he said.

LeBlanc told the Register that he finds it difficult to understand why anyone would restrict the Latin Mass, especially because it is so popular among young families.

“The Latin Mass is where all of the families are. Even the parishioners who don’t go to Latin Mass and prefer the new Mass — they love the Latin Mass because that’s where they get to see all the young families. They’re upset too,” LeBlanc said.

Dan Lejeune, who has lived in the area for 30 years, says he’s not going anywhere, but he feels for the young families of the parish.

“This parish is blessed with families, large families with lots of kids. It’s really not possible to drive long distances to take all of these kids to Mass, and some of them were stair-stepping — two, three, four, five. It just doesn’t work,” he said.

“As Father said today, you put it in the hands of the angels and hope,” Lejeune said, referring to Father Buettner’s homily on the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels in which he spoke of the importance and efficacy of praying to one’s guardian angel and to the guardian angels of others.

Father Buettner served as spiritual director at St. Joseph Seminary in Mount Holly, North Carolina, while serving as parochial administrator at St. John the Baptist until July of this year, when he was made full-time pastor of the parish.

Gonzalez, too, said she remains hopeful that their parish will be able to return to the practice of their Catholic faith in the way they have become accustomed.

“The Latin Mass has poured a great deal of grace over our family. There’s no question about it. In spite of having a lot of suffering, because we’ve had a lot of suffering, but God is unbelievably merciful. So I feel like this is just a test, perhaps, that God is allowing. And again, I have total hope that we will see the Latin Mass again.”