Prior to 2007 the Traditional Latin Mass was offered in a handful of places in the diocese; however it was Pope Benedict’s 2007 Moto Proprio Summorum Pontificum that encouraged the Traditional Latin Mass to flourish in the Charlotte Diocese. During this time the Charlotte Latin Mass Community (CLMC) was formed to promote the Latin Mass in the Charlotte Diocese.

After the Moto Proprio’s release and CLMC’s creation, the Diocese held a Latin Mass seminar to train priests on how to offer the Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

By 2008 St. Ann Catholic Church, under Pastor Fr. Timothy Reid, began offering a weekday Latin Mass and a Saturday evening Mass. By 2012 the attendance grew to a sizable and stable amount that the CLMC formally requested a regular Sunday Latin Mass. While the diocese was supportive it was unable to accommodate a Sunday Latin Mass.

On its own accord, the CLMC wrote to the Ecclesia Dei Commission, the Vatican entity overseeing the implementation of Summorum Pontifcum to apprise them of the situation in Charlotte and request their intercession to obtain a Sunday Latin Mass for the Charlotte faithful.

In 2013, the Ecclesia Dei Commission agreed to the request and in only the second time in recent memory in the Church (the other being a diocese in the former Yugoslavia), requested the Diocese to begin offering a Traditional Latin Mass on Sunday. By providence, the decision was signed Pope Benedict XVI on his last day in office in February 2013.

Today with several Sunday Latin Masses, and many more daily Latin Masses the CLMC continues to promote the Latin Mass at St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte and throughout the diocese.