Catholics pray Rosary in reparation for Charlotte bishop banning altar rails, kneelers

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (LifeSiteNews) — Catholics across the Diocese of Charlotte are praying the Rosary to protest their bishop’s restrictions on traditional practices, including a ban on altar rails and kneelers for Communion.

At 12:00 pm on Thursday, January 15, Catholics will gather at the Diocese of Charlotte Pastoral Center (located at 1123 S Church St, Charlotte, NC 28203) to publicly pray the Rosary in reparation for Bishop Martin’s recent moves to replace traditional Catholic practices with modernist ones throughout the diocese.

“We ask that you join us to pray the Rosary in reparation for Bishop Martin’s directives to dismantle much that has borne fruit for the faithful of our diocese, and that it would shepherd us with mercy and charity,” reads an event poster shared with LifeSiteNews.

“Please circulate this information to all the laity in the Charlotte Diocese, family, friends, or anyone across the country, that they might join with us in praying on this day and house even from a distance,” it continued.

Calls for prayer come as Martin makes a series of changes away from tradition since being installed as the bishop of Charlotte in 2024.

READ: Charlotte priests submit dubia to Vatican over Bishop Martin’s ban on altar rails, kneelers

In 2025, Martin set off a firestorm of controversy when he merged the diocese’s four Traditional Latin Masses (TLMs) to just one small chapel 40 miles from downtown Charlotte, which purposely cannot accommodate all the faithful who wish to attend the TLM.

Nevertheless, faithful Catholics pack into the tiny church every Sunday, with some driving up to two hours to attend the TLM. October numbers the combined attendance between the early Low Mass and the High Mass was between 600 to 625 people.

Furthermore, in mid-December, Martin officially ordered that all altar rails and kneelers no longer be used for the reception of Holy Communion at all Novus Ordo Masses by January 16, 2026. He also ordered churches to remove all “temporary or movable fixtures used for kneeling” for Holy Communion.

Thirty-one priests in the diocese — around a quarter of all its clergy — recently submitted dubia to the Vatican asking for clarification on Martin’s authority to restrict traditional practices.

As The Liturgy Guy pointed out, the Diocese of Charlotte inherited from Martin’s predecessor, Bishop Peter Jugis, a relatively high number of vocations to the priesthood, suggesting this may be related to the prevalent use of altar rails within the diocese.

Of the diocese’s current seminarians, “75% of those young men come from parishes where the use of altar rails or communion kneelers has been the norm,” the Liturgy Guy noted, pointing to the study that shows reverent Eucharistic practices increase belief in the Real Presence. The high number of seminarians could also have been attributed to Jugis’s previous seminary program.