News today was found at The Pillar.
More than 30 priests (31 signatories, representing about one-quarter of the diocesan clergy, with two-thirds of them pastors) from the Diocese of Charlotte submitted formal dubia to the Dicastery for Legislative Texts on January 5, 2026, seeking clarification on the liturgical authority of their diocesan bishop, Bishop Michael Martin.
The dubia were prompted by concerns over a 17 December pastoral letter from Bishop Martin that, effective January 2026, prohibits the use of altar rails, kneelers, and prie-dieus for receiving Holy Communion, requiring removal of movable kneeling fixtures.
In the questions submitted, the priests ask whether a diocesan bishop may:
- Ban the erection and require removal of altar rails, given liturgical norms (e.g., GIRM 295 and 42) that call for the sanctuary to be distinctly marked.
- Prohibit kneelers for those who wish to receive Communion while kneeling, noting that kneeling is permitted by the GIRM (and Redemptionis sacramentum).
- Restrict vestments, communion by intinction, and other liturgical elements (such as prayers, gestures, chants, and ornaments) that are not prohibited in universal liturgical law but are referenced in a leaked draft of further diocesan liturgical regulations.
The submission of dubia reflects broader controversy and concern among both clergy and lay faithful in the diocese about Bishop Martin’s recent liturgical directives and his overall governance style, which some describe as overly prescriptive or “micromanaging.”
One might add tyrannical.
It is hard to say what will result from this. It went to Legislative Texts instead of Divine Worship (which has its own canonical section).
Will it be slow walked?
In any event, this will probably result in a clarification of the vague language in Church documents about the bishop being the “the chief steward of the mysteries of God in the particular Church entrusted to his care, is the moderator, promoter, and guardian of the whole of its liturgical life” (GIRM 22).
Also, this will reveal what Pope Leo thinks about the relationship of bishops and priests.
When 25% of a dioceses priests, and 75% of them being pastors (18.75%), rise up like this, there is clearly a serious problem with the bishop.
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I applaud the courage of these priests as I have been told that a bishop can make life difficult for priests that cross him. Since the consistory this month will address liturgical questions, I suspect that the Dicastery will wait for the outcome of it.
Pray for these priests as well as their bishop. Pray for the consistory also.
If it was only 2 or 3 priests then they could be sent to ecclesiastical Siberia, but 30 priests, that will be much harder to do, given the priest shortage.
I have mixed feelings – if the Dicastery allows the bishop to get away with these restrictions, that may give other bishops and priests a lot less wiggle room in allowing traditional elements.
jhogan:
I applaud the courage of these priests as well and I am glad it’s roughly one third of the diocese and two thirds of pastors.
I am reminded of a few classes I had in college where a common denominator was the professor couldn’t fail everybody. My hope is that the local ordinary will come to his senses since he would be in dire straits if one third of his flock was canceled (and the geographical area the diocese covers is huge – all the way to the Tennessee border).
Perhaps the priests sent it to Legislative Texts instead of Divine Worship because at issue isn’t the liturgy so much as the authority of the bishop? Yes, I realize they’re connected, but if the texts they cite and quote don’t mean what they appear to mean then (perhaps) the bishop isn’t the servant of the liturgy but its manipulator, and the priests not really spiritual fathers bringing their flock to Christ but camp guards at Treblinka?
The most diplomatic way to say it is that he’ll likely win on the kneelers point is he’ll (correctly) say that some priests in the Jugis era brought in altar rails into churches where the congregants had no desire for them and told everyone that this was the way things were being done now. He’ll then mention the people this hurts most are old people who instead of going up to the altar sit in their seats by larger numbers to have priests bring it to them because their knees don’t let them kneel on kneelers.
For what it’s worth, while the above is a real problem in some of the parishes run by diocesan priests in Charlotte that will provide him cover with the Holy See, I think this was handled in a less than ideal and he should be moving much more slowly.
The vesting prayers point he’ll clearly lose on. You can’t control what people silently pray in their heads or even out loud with no one else around.
We need more brave priests like these men.
I am checking the arithmetic on the demographics of the Tarheel clergy.
If 31 priests are about a quarter of the presbyterate of Charlotte, then there are “about” 124 priests in the diocese.
If two thirds of the 31 signatories are pastors, then 20.667 pastors signed, and 10.333 other priests.
This means that out of those 21 parishes, there is one parish in Charlotte that is led by only two thirds of a pastor. It seems that more attention should be given to that parish and to that man who is either very small or very limited in his job.
Of even greater concern is the parish that has a parochial vicar who is only about two feet tall.
@R2D – There are folks at the TLM I attend who are unable to kneel for various reasons (ages, injuries . . .etc.). They go up to the altar rail and stand. And the priest gives them Communion on the tongue. And nobody has a problem with it.
Not sure why the old people you encounter feel like they have to sit in the pew, but this has absolutely not been something I’ve seen at any Latin Mass I’ve ever attended.
If I were in front of the Holy Father and he asked me about the changes done by the Bishop in my Diocese, I would simply say, “So much for synodality and subsidiarity.”
Case closed. Please pray for our errant Bishop.
@WVC: I have older family who attend some of the parishes where altar rails were forced; they don’t feel comfortable going up and standing with everyone kneeling so just stay in their seats. This is NO, so the demographics of people who know they’re allowed to go up and stand is going to be a lot lower.
But going back to the question of older people: your response shows what has annoyed me most about the online outrage to this — even in TLMs, people with knee problems prefer standing to receive communion, not kneeling. I really struggle to see how the hypothetical old person with bad knees who is so devoted they must kneel and need altar rails is a good faith argument. Anyone who has been to a mass (NO or TLM) with the 70+ knows the preference here isn’t kneeling.
The best argument against some of the reforms is that +Martin is being overly prescriptive and bishops don’t have power to dictate how priests prefer to distribute communion. The old person desperately needing the kneeler argument detracts from that and actually helps his case.
I don’t see it as a slam dunk case either way, but he actually has a decent case that he was protecting the ability of people to receive standing just because of how equally ham-handed some of the more conservative priests were when the brought in altar rails.
@R2D Both the NO and the TLM at my parish distribute Communion on the tongue kneeling at the altar rail as the norm. For folks who have knee problems, back problems, balance issues, or are very old, they will stand and receive Communion. Nobody gives those people a hard time in any way, shape, or form. However, the majority of the elderly folks feel compelled to kneel even though it is painful, and the altar rail is absolutely a help to them. This goes for folks who are also suffering from ailments who, nevertheless, feel compelled to kneel.
So claiming that altar rails are of no help to those who would use them is wrong. Your argument against altar rails is basically, “Anybody who has difficulty in kneeling should be forced to stand and not given any support to kneel, even if they want to.”
I’m not really sure why you feel compelled to defend the most obviously odious bishop in America right now (and that’s a very stiff competition), but your prejudice against folks who actually want to kneel despite the pain it brings is very distracting.
And I’d like to see you provide a single example of a priest in Charlotte who brow-beat the elderly or injured who were unable to kneel, because it sounds like you’re just making that up.
As a parishioner of one of these parishes in Charlotte with an altar rail, the elderly feel entirely comfortable approaching and standing to receive communion, and so do others that do not want to kneel. The argument that people feel ‘pressured’ to kneel is a red herring. Now lets see the complete opposite scenario – when the altar rail prohibited to be used, anybody who wants to kneel, including the elderly, will need to kneel on the hard floor.
@R2D
I am or will be your “hypothetical old person.”
As someone with bad knees, it is not the easiest thing to get up from tile/marble flooring. I know that in my old age, I will be very thankful for there being an altar rail, where it belongs, where it should be, where it being it says “this is a Roman Catholic parish, not someplace else.”
I am sure that, since these are your older family members, that you have properly catechized them, and there is no reason that they shouldn’t just go and stand and receive. The demographics of people who know that they are allowed to go and stand is near zero anyway — it is baked into current NO catechetics, and standing was drilled into the heads of those who had the railings taken away from them. Typically, it is people just being uptight that others are falling on their knees before Our Lord, rather than engaging in liturgical queuing.
Let me beg to differ and throw this out there — among the 70+ crowd, there is a good % that desires to kneel, that is their preference, but they cannot, and not kneeling is a burden to them.
Ignoring the spiritual benefits of kneeling, kneeling is what Roman Catholics do — it is part of the liturgical heritage of the Roman Rite — it is a thing of what makes us Roman Catholic. Certain bishops don’t like the patrimony of their rite, of our rite. They can try, but they take it away only by injustice.
*my knees hurt from these bishops*
Look… I’m 55. I grew up well after Vatican II. And even I had gone to churches that had kept the altar rails and allowed people to receive on their knees.
So I know perfectly well that, if you look at old movies of the time before Vatican II, you can clearly see old people or people with knee/leg problems receiving standing, when at churches that normally had people receiving on their knees at the altar rail.
People would just walk up to the altar rail, and remain standing at the step or kneeler, instead of kneeling down at the step or kneeler. If there were logistical problems, there was usually a “known corner” of the rail where such people would go. If there were really bad logistical problems, Father would know to go to them, and often there was a designated seating area (my home parish used to keep the front pews clear for the disabled, for as long as I could remember).
If there’s a question, you can always ask Father, or the deacon, or even ask an usher (because ushers know everything you need to know) or a church lady who’s elderly (because church ladies often know more than ushers).
A lot of times, there’s a note in the bulletin about this sort of thing, and nowadays I’m sure it’s all over the parish websites too.
I recently read an old biography of St. Catherine of Siena.
At one point in her career, when Our Lord gave her an opportunity to share His suffering and humiliation, she was forbidden to receive Communion very often, because she would go off into an ecstasy and often float in the air, and some of her sisters and male confreres did not like it.
This was at a point when she was generally only eating Communion, so it was a very nasty thing to do.
But that wasn’t nasty enough for some. So because the guy in charge of the church wanted to close up and go home earlier, he and some male religious buddies would pick up St. Catherine while she was in ecstasy, and sometimes while she was levitating, and physically carry her out of church and throw her onto the ground. On many occasions, they threw her onto a trash heap or a dung heap. (If she was levitating, she didn’t land on the trash, though.)
This didn’t bring St. Catherine out of ecstasy, so her female companions had to stand around her (not being able to carry her) and wait for her to come out of this.
On many occasions, while they were waiting, townspeople would cuss at the women, and both men and women often took the opportunity to spit or kick at St. Catherine.
But this was a great opportunity for St. Catherine to grow in holiness, and the same thing for her friends. And she prayed for those who hated her, and did them good.
Sometimes injustice can be pointed out or resisted, but sometimes bad things just are allowed to happen, for our eventual good.
And more to the point – St. Catherine in many ways was standing for the Bride, the Church herself. The spotless Bride is always being attacked, even though she’s always doing good and working miracles in the world.
But there’s also always people who love the Bride and share in being attacked.
A lot to unpack but a few points:
1) people seem to assume the average massgoer knows about any of the specifics of the rules and regulations around posture at Mass. I think that’s an unjustified assumption. Most just do what others do.
2) Conservative priests do just as bad a job of educating their parishioners that they have the right to stand at altar rails as liberal priests do at educating their parishioners they have a right to kneel without them. Both sides are intentionally selective in what they tell people, at least in my experience.
3) The population of older adults with knee issues who prefer to stand is going to be significantly larger than those who prefer to kneel.
4) from historical context (10-15 years ago) many of the churches where this is having an impact had the altar rails installed because the pastor wanted them, not the majority of parishioners at the time [majority now probably do for a variety of reasons]
5) Any competent advocate or bishop will be able to connect points 1-4 to make an argument for needing restrictions
Generally if you’re trying to argue that something is incorrect, it’s good to avoid giving the opposing side ammunition. Raising the knee issues with kneelers point gives a lot of ammunition to those who oppose altar rails.
@R2D Most of your points are based on how you happen to know exactly what other people are saying, doing, or thinking, even if you haven’t ever laid eyes on them. Apparently, you can’t comprehend that there are people who suffer pain in kneeling but who still desire to kneel out of sincere devotion and not just “duh, the priest never told me I didn’t have to kneel even though I see other people not kneeling” dull wittedness. Your entire position hinges on people being so dumb they can’t figure out whether they should kneel or not, and somehow you think that’s given you ammunition to support banning altar rails.
Your argument is not nearly as clever as you seem to think it is. And I’m not aware of any altar rail installations in the past 20 years that were done without parishioner contributions – again, you’d have to point out multiple real life examples of a pastor installing altar rails against the desire or involvement of the parishioners, or I’d once again assume you’re just making this up and then taking it as a fact. What we do have, both as historical fact and current insanity, are examples of pastors and bishops ripping out altar rails and high altars most definitely against the desire of the parishioners, but I guess that’s okay because it’s for the sake of Vatican II?
Thank you for those comments, Suburbanbanshee! Blessed be God for this situation. May we all grow in faith, patience and charity, especially Bishop Martin (pray for him!). Merry Christmas, everyone!
@R2D – I’ve been working at one of the parishes that “forced” the kneeler issue for about a decade now, and a parishioner for 13. While I don’t doubt there were some people afraid of the implementation, I never got word of any old person who has stopped receiving communion simply because a prie dieu was put in the center aisle.
In fact, the two side transepts did not have a kneeler for the longest time. When we had our renovation and the rails were installed, there was no sermons or catechesis on how to use the rail or what to do during communion, particularly in the side transepts. I remember cantoring in the loft and watching the communion line still be in the single file procession for months. (Ironically, while the center section of the nave had more people, the side transept single file lines took about as long for distribution, which makes an argument that single file distribution in fact takes longer than the rail, but I digress).
Perhaps your parish forced the issue, but that has not been my experience at the parish. And I have a feeling come January 16 it will be business as usual at my parish — not out of disobedience, but because it’s a non issue.