Diocese of Charlotte Like A Boss…

… Our diocese has gotten a lot of undeserved negative press these past few months. It seems her biggest critics are local disengaged Catholics and people outside the diocese who have the loudest opinions on matters they know little of.

Fine. Let them squawk. People will only see what they want to see. Sadly, in some cases, all they will see is the negative because it’s what they seek.

My prospective is different. I’ve witnessed the positive changes in our diocese first hand; the reverent liturgies, church renovations, sacred music workshops and concerts, retreats, pro-life ministries, growing numbers of seminarians, converts, and swells of altar boys. And beauty. So much beauty.

This past week the Catholic Press Association held their Catholic Media Conference here in Charlotte. Mass was held at the local cathedral after each days’ events. The final mass Friday evening was a memorial mass where Catholic journalists who died the past year are remembered. The celebrant was Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. He’s known as the guy who put the pope on Twitter.

Archbishop Celli gave a beautiful homily in our humble cathedral but what Deacon Greg Kandra of the Deacon’s Bench noted about this particular mass made me especially proud of our diocese.

Friday night, there were a handful of very young altar servers—so young, when they sat in their chairs in the sanctuary, their feet didn’t touch the ground. (A couple of them were assigned to handle the miter and crozier and did it perfectly, complete with humeral veils.) There were a dozen or so Knights of Columbus, in full uniform, complete with swords. There were three or four seminarians assisting at the altar. There was a young MC. There were two deacons.

From what I observed, every single one of those people who served the Mass—the Knights, the deacons, the seminarians, even the young altar boys—received communion on the tongue.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen that done so widely and so consistently by so many.

Diocese of Charlotte… like a boss.