A Crisis of Trustworthiness (Part One)

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

A Crisis of Trustworthiness (Part One)

Instead of the usual Animal Friend, I’m writing today about a couple of local events that illustrate common themes at CSLF: the loss of trust in institutions — because of the people in the institutions — and the pernicious effects of technology on individuals and society.

The first event involves the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte and its new (just over a year in office) Bishop, Michael Martin. The kerfuffle was triggered by Bishop Martin’s continuing the implementation of the motu proprio instruction Traditionis custodes, issued by the late Pope Francis in 2021. This instruction limited the celebration of the “Traditional [pre-1962] Latin Mass”, to facilities established for that purpose. The implementation took place in phases in Charlotte due to several factors, including the extremely poor health of now-retired Bishop Jugis.

Upon Bishop Martin’s issuing instructions to complete the process, there was an outburst of opposition from the fewer than .2% of Charlotte mass attendees who are devoted to this ritual. (For comparison, this is about as many people as typically attend our Spanish mass at St. Luke on a Sunday.) “Traditionalists,” or more accurately, “schismatics,” from around the interwebs were drawn into the fluster when someone — almost certainly a priest of the Diocese — leaked to schismatic websites confidential documents, draft guidelines, and a snarky “open” — but anonymous — letter addressed to the Bishop.

Mike Lewis at Where Peter Is has published an article with an excellent discussion of the disinformation campaign.

Some key points from the article:

In the Catholic Church, diocesan priests promise respect and obedience to their bishop when ordained. These leaks suggest a grave violation of these promises they made and have clearly undermined the authority of their bishop, as evidenced by the media outcry.

[…]

The letter’s anonymous author attempts to position himself as a spokesman for discontented voices in the diocese, yet neither he nor the anonymous malcontents he claims to represent have the courage to put their names behind this preposterous screed. While claiming to act in humility and obedience, the author tells the bishop that he is autocratic and out of touch and even insinuates that Martin is motivated by ambition or careerism (“Many wonder if the pace of change is motivated by a pursuit of promotion to an archdiocese, rather than nurturing the long-term health of our humble diocese in Charlotte”). This missive is clearly a strategic effort to pressure Martin publicly and to discredit his reforms. Subsequently, The Pillar’s promotion of it is an attempt to do the same.

The whole piece is worth reading. For purposes of this essay, the critical point is the dishonesty and oath-breaking behind the anti-Bishop movement. These are people who are supposed to have been conformed to Christ, but they are acting like common political figures, using friendly media to push an agenda contrary to the institution they “serve.” This point was made strongly last Sunday by Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari of Belmont Abbey:

Brothers and sisters, I propose that anonymous letter made public and anonymous leaks of confidential documents, which were never published to the faithful, are crude and clumsy plays for power and control, which obstruct the work of the Holy Spirit.

They are a confirmation of the Lord’s own teaching, ‘For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God’ (Jn 3:20-21). Let us then all together shun the works of darkness and anonymity.

(Full text and commentary here. )

Abbot Placid emphasized two causes of the disturbance, both common to many institutions these days. First, individualism: the expectation that I am entitled to what I want, simply because I want it. Second, partisanship: the idea that everything is a black-and-white conflict between Our Good Group and Bad Other Group. This generates a belief that there are no moral restrictions on the tactics Our Good Group may use in the conflict: What we do is Good because we are the Good Side.

The way the “Twitter is life” mindset, with its junior-high mob mentality, is affecting the Diocese of Charlotte is very similar to the way the U.S. Government is affected by leakers, self-promoters, and the power of the online mob. As I have previously remarked, we used to not know how self-absorbed, weird, or dangerously psychopathic major public figures were, but now they come right out in public and show us.

As a regular church-goer, can you trust your priest if you don’t know whether he’s part of an underground cabal seeking to depose the Bishop for supporting what is taught by the Pope? Watch this space for further developments, and another illustrative anecdote will be the subject of Part Two of this essay.