A Letter to a Friend about the TLM Massacre in Knoxville

SSPX Chapel in Linden, Virginia decorated for Christmas 2024

I wrote a letter to a friend today, and I offer it for all my brothers and sisters who attend the traditional Latin Mass and desire all the sacraments in the traditional form. We are not rebels, we are faithful Catholics who desire nothing but to worship God the same way Catholics did for over a millennium which, according to Pope Benedict XVI, cannot be abrogated. Let us remain faithful and never despair despite the abuse from our shepherds. Scripture is clear. "Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the pastors that feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold I will visit upon you for the evil of your doings, saith the Lord." Jeremiah 23:1-2 Pray for the pope and the bishops. They have much for which to answer!

Dear Friend,

After reading Chris Jackson’s post from Hiraeth in Exile about the bishop crushing the TLM in Knoxville, I had to write to express my sorrow for your loss. This is the headline that caught my eye and left me feeling angry and sorrowful for all my brothers and sisters in Knoxville experiencing this injustice:

Leo’s Knoxville Bishop Kills the Latin Mass; Leo Says it Doesn’t Foster Communion With Others, Can Numb Our Hearts 

As dioceses shutter the Latin Mass and Leo XIV preaches against “forms of worship” that “do not foster communion,” Rome’s interfaith machine celebrates Diwali and Nostra Aetate.

As I read this, I couldn’t help but wonder how long it will be before the threat of excommunication looms over us. And then what? If Rome excommunicates the SSPX and those who attend their Masses, what a choice! It makes me think of Archbishop Lefebvre’s statement that he was passing on what he was given. I suspect I will embrace excommunication like St. Athanasius and Archbishop Lefebvre must have – with grief, but hope in the faithfulness of God to his persecuted flock. I pray it doesn’t come to that, but the signs seem to point in that direction.

When I think of all the saints formed by the faith taught for so many centuries with, not just the TLM, but with all the traditional sacraments of the Church, I can’t help but mourn. So many traditions: the Angelus, the Ember Days, the feasts and ferria described in my Benedictus – all lost to most Catholics. And what has replaced them? Very little. We have a stripped down liturgy, a stripped down sanctuary, stripped down sacraments, stripped down catechesis. And our shepherds tell us with straight faces it is to foster unity. Unity with whom? It’s pretty clear from the fall into syncretism that it is fostering unity with the world which is ruled, not by the Prince of Peace, but by Lucifer.

Do they really think we believe the charade that all this spiritual abuse is to foster unity? They preach that all other religions are a path to salvation... except for those who worship according to the faith of our fathers for over fifteen hundred years? We are the disobedient troublemakers standing in the way of their new church modeled on all the Protestant heresies of the past. Has modernism, the synthesis of all heresies, finally been victorious? NO! NEVER!

I hope that for all those dioceses where tradition has been crushed, itinerant preachers will rise up like the priests on horseback in the early days of our country. Let faithful Catholics in each area of persecution choose a home large enough to house the chapel, adorn it worthily, and bring the Mass there walking in the footsteps of the recusants in England. I am sure those priests on horsepower rather than horseback would be cared for by the people they served as they traveled to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which the faithful have the right to attend. It cannot be abrogated as Pope Benedict XVI said!

Our chapel is in the process of closing on property where our traditional community will make its home. There are no buildings and no water, electricity, etc., so it will be some time before we have a functioning church there. In the meantime, Larry and I will continue to attend at our beautiful temporary home in Linden. I offer an open invitation for you to come any time. First Friday, First Saturday, and First Sunday would offer three days of celebration and it would be a true blessing for us to visit with you.

What a Christmas gift your bishop is giving the traditional community: to celebrate the last TLM Mass on December 28th. But how fitting that it falls on the Feast of the Holy Innocents as your shepherd father, like Herod of old, sends his sons to ride in with swords drawn to massacre the innocent faithful guilty of no crime but love for Jesus Christ and the desire to give Him worthy worship! 

I am confident that all will be well in the end, but at present it is a time of suffering. May that suffering be offered like incense for the revival of Holy Mother Church and the salvation of many souls beginning with the pope and the bishops. God is faithful to His people. He will not abandon us.

With love and prayers,

Mary Ann