My Journey to the Traditional Latin Mass
In the scene above, Mary Magdalene is a witness to the Risen Lord (John 20:15-18). This is the journey of Aloonsri Paokumhang who clings to the Lord even in exile.
February 11, 2026 by Aloonsri Paokumhang
“Our duty as Catholics is to know the truth; to live the truth; to defend the truth; to share the truth with others, and to suffer for the truth.”
— Father John Hardon, SJ
I am a parishioner in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina. Although I was baptized into the Catholic faith during college, I fell away for several decades to the lies of the Protestant movement. It is only after having lost my beloved mother that I returned to the Catholic Church. Covid was a scary and confusing time for many, but it was during this time that I was stripped of most of my material belongings by abusive and culturally insensitive people and the corrupt systems that supported them. I firmly believe that my mother and grandfather sent some beautiful saints of our faith to rescue me as I was trying so desperately to find my way back to Christ.
Initially, I connected with a parish of the Diocese of Charleston, SC that was led by a well respected, well published priest with a reputation for praying for those who had fallen away from their Catholic roots. After completing several months of RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults — now OCIA — the Catholic Church’s formation program for adults), I approached this priest multiple times with requests for him to hear my general confession so that I could be received back into full communion with Holy Mother Church at Easter. Each time, he flatly refused, and directed me to his deacon who had hardly bothered to learn my name during the entire time that I had attended RCIA.
After much prayer and seeking, I reached out to a dear priest who had been my friend, confidant, and spiritual advisor during my earlier years. He remembered me and was overjoyed to hear from me after so much time had passed. He made himself available, even though I wasn’t a parishioner, and I drove a rented RV to see him because I couldn’t wait to meet Christ again in the Holy Eucharist! (This was still during the height of Covid, when public transportation was somewhat limited.) He heard my almost 3-hour general confession and invited me to the next morning’s Holy Mass, allowing me to receive the Precious Body of Our Lord for the first time in decades. I cannot express the joy and relief that I felt, to have the weight of years of sin and separation lifted by such a gift of love and mercy in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist! I was home again!
I was so elated during my drive home, and couldn’t wait to share my excitement with the priest of the church that I had been attending. Imagine my embarrassment and shame when that same priest berated me in the narthex after Mass (in front of the entire church) for receiving Holy Communion, disobeying him and going to another priest for confession. He even demanded to know the name of the priest who had “done this” so that he could investigate him “to be sure he is in good standing with the Church”. (I didn’t respond.) Furthermore, he screamed at me and told me to “get out of my church and don’t ever come back”. (I have never returned.) Those venomous words of condemnation tore me to my very core, but God had a purpose.
Although I was confident that I was a child of God and still in good standing in the Catholic Church (because of the assurances of the priest who had granted me absolution), I couldn’t understand what had happened to the Church since I had been away. Had Vatican II really changed everything the way that some people had suggested? Was I still too much of a Protestant with weak catechesis? Was Christ’s death on the Cross for everyone else but me? I had these and so many other questions on my heart, but I still felt drawn to receive Christ in daily Mass. It was during a morning Mass in another parish that I encountered a religious sister. After a brief conversation, she invited me to a Holy Hour. No questions, no judgment, no prerequisites whatsoever. Just an open invitation to join her in Adoration in a sacred space before the Blessed Sacrament.
Since that first encounter, I have moved to the Diocese of Charlotte. I have come to love and respect the priests and consecrated religious of our diocese, who demonstrate to me what loving reverence for Our Lord Jesus Christ truly looks like. I visit many of the parishes, as each has its own unique charism and personality, and I learn how to pray specifically for the priests, consecrated religious and parishioners. This variety also gives me many opportunities to serve as needs arise. One of the greatest gifts that I’ve received from my time here is the Traditional Latin Mass. Although I was baptized under the Novus Ordo in college, I have found sacred beauty and reverence in the Tridentine Mass. Through God’s Providence, I learned of this Rite because it was offered in one of the parishes in Charlotte. The parish offered plenty of teaching and encouragement for me, because I don’t understand Latin and needed to have a foundational knowledge of the Ancient Rite. In a beautiful display of liturgical unity (not uniformity), the parish offered both Novus Ordo and Latin Rite Masses on the same campus, as well as other rites from other Catholic orders and in languages other than English. Since October 2025, Bishop Michael Martin (who has only been here since Spring 2024) has banished the Latin Mass to a small chapel that requires almost two hours’ travel time (one way) for most of the lay faithful. Additionally, the only priest who has permission to offer the Latin Mass in the diocese is the chaplain of the TLM chapel. My catechesis has fallen away, my weekly time to perform corporal works of mercy has been cut by the 4+ hours of travel time necessitated to get to the Chapel of the Little Flower, and my connections to my parish family have been strained to say the least. I am so torn between staying faithful to my parish priest (who is no longer permitted to offer the TLM by our Bishop) and being loyal to learning more about the Latin Mass in a chapel that is two hours away. For lack of a better phrase, this TLM crisis has created a “liturgical schizophrenia”, making me choose between my home parish and a beloved reverential Rite. For me, the Novus Ordo Mass suffices, but my heart finds its most powerful song in the smells, sights, sacred music and quiet reverence of the Tridentine Mass. As a child of immigrant parents, I know how vitally important it is to maintain language, traditions and rituals. Because our priests and seminarians are no longer permitted to teach or learn the rituals and prayers of the Tridentine Mass, I am very concerned that this Ancient Rite may fade away, leaving us less able to defend ourselves against the evil and profanity that surround us. In my opinion, we have become so accustomed to the profane that we don’t know how to identify or behave in the presence of the holy and sacred. How is it that 20 Buddhist monks from all over the world can sense humanity’s desperation for hope, peace and compassion and Walk for Peace, while a Catholic Bishop banishes his own faithful sheep to a liturgical exile?
Holy Mother Church has so much to offer to our hurting and dying world, as I have personally experienced Christ’s healing graces against the abuses of my past. Our holy priests, our beautiful sacraments and our cherished traditions may be mysteries and “contradictions to the world”, but they are 100% efficacious against spiritual attacks and wounds. Does a lay person really need to audibly hear all of the prayers of the priest or understand Latin at all to know when their wounded soul has been healed? I trust a consecrated priest, who has been formed by thousands of years of teaching, to bring me to Christ and to sainthood, the full healing of my soul for all eternity.
In respectful obedience, the faithful have written to our Bishop to express our concerns and hurts. In response, we have received form letters or no response at all. Most recently, he has demanded the removal of altar rails, kneelers and prie-dieux. Additionally, while he is encouraging the resumption of distributing Holy Communion under both species, he is vocal about abandoning the practice of intinction. Bishop Martin has also interfered with the formation program with our local seminary, “adding a year to seminary formation”, as announced in our diocesan publication, The Catholic News Herald.
How does the removal of an altar rail remind me of the need for separation of the sacred from the secular? How does the absence of a kneeler or prie-dieux show charity to someone who is physically unable to kneel without an aid, yet wishes to demonstrate reverence to Our Lord? How does the absence of the practice of intinction permit the faithful reception under both species, yet avoid profanation, cross-contamination and support basic sanitation practices for the priest and the parishioners? Why would anyone want to initiate these changes at a time when attendance in our Catholic churches has been declining, and studies are showing that up to 70% of professing Catholics do not believe in transubstantiation? (“Wonder bread and grape juice,” as Father Chris Alar, MIC has coined.) Instead of adding a formation year in an academic environment, why wouldn’t the diocese encourage our seminarians to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Tridentine Rite that has produced centuries of saints around the world? Or better still, why not trust St. Joseph to lead our seminarians as he has been doing faithfully through Father Matthew Kauth since the inception of St. Joseph’s College Seminary in 2016?
I don’t know any of the actual answers to these questions, as our Bishop has declined to attend a Latin Mass in our diocese or engage in any meaningful dialogue with those of us who have been exiled to the TLM ghetto. It would seem, from a lay perspective, that a future priest could learn more from total immersion in the richness of the Traditional Latin Mass than from teaching in a school, Catholic or otherwise. It would also seem that true synodality could be better achieved by intimate personal dialogue than by standardized form letter or dead silence. At a time when the sheep of the Charlotte Diocese are begging for opportunities to show reverence for the sacred, it appears that recent persecution of the Tridentine Mass and its exiled adherents is creating further division, confusion and anxiety — and that’s just within the Church. What does the world see?
We have generous and dedicated canonical experts working tirelessly to bring our dire situation to the attention of the Vatican. The stakes at hand could not be higher or more urgent. With all due respect, we have grandparents, parents, children and non-Catholics who don’t have time for the slow wheels of the Church to correct the spiritual abuses that have been inflicted on us by this Bishop under the guise of “obedience” and “submission”. Our nation, our very souls and the souls of next generations are depending on us to get this right, NOW. For such a time as this …..
Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us!
St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us!
St. Joseph, pray for us!
St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us!
St. Veronica, pray for us!
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us!
St. Agatha, pray for us!
St. Joan of Arc, pray for us!
St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!
St. Francis Xavier, pray for us!
St. Padre Pio, pray for us!
St. Faustina, pray for us!
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!
St. Carlo Acutis, pray for us!
St. Josephine Bakhita, pray for us!
All ye holy angels and saints of God, pray for us!
Introibo ad altare Dei,
ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Aloonsri Paokumhang is a Catholic convert, and a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from Thailand. After learning of the Divine Mercy conversion of Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, a fellow Thai, she began to follow Beyond These Stone Walls and became an active reader.
Editor’s Note: To learn about the Traditional Latin Mass please visit the following website and watch the trilogy on the Mass of the Ages: