Virginia Beach, VA – Bishop Sam Brown of the Diocese of Virginia Beach placed new restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass within his diocese today. While it will be allowed to continue once a week for now at one location within his diocese, as Bishop Brown commented on the diocese’s website today, it will be moved from its current location in a gym in the most rural part of his diocese: “I will extend the courtesy of allowing the celebration of the Extraordinary Form for one more year, it will only be allowed in one location each Sunday, in an undersea cave off of the Atlantic coast accessible only by scuba gear.
“It’s only two hundred feet underwater, a very very generously easy location to swim to, and while the priest and all attendees will have to wear scuba gear to attend the TLM, Traditionalists should be thankful that we didn’t decide to put the diocesan-approved Latin Mass at the bottom of the Marianas Trench,” Bishop Brown added. “We’re being very generous here, and I want to be clear that I want no complaints about this location. Ok?”
Traditionalist Catholics are mixed about the Bishop’s announcement. While most are glad that Bishop Brown, known for his close friendship with leftist German Cardinal Gunter Schuster, is still allowing the Latin Mass within his diocese, some have “concerns” over the practicality of them bringing their families to the new weekly Latin Mass. “I can’t buy scuba gear for my six-month-old baby,” said one concerned father of fifteen whom IIT interviewed from Newport News, VA (he asked us to keep his name anonymous).
Others wonder how they will be able to receive Holy Communion underwater, or whether an undersea water-filled chapel is an appropriate place to have Mass in the first place. However, Bishop Brown adds that “putting the Latin Mass a little bit away from the center of attention is our goal of putting Traditionis Custodes into practice. We obviously can’t put in a regular church. That could cause dangerous levels of tradition and perhaps even veiling that I obviously can’t permit my progressive diocese to have within its rainbow-gilded boundaries.”
Bishop Brown is reportedly considering releasing sharks next to the location to ensure that the Latin Mass “isn’t too popularly attended.”
“We might even move it to the bottom of a coal mine a mile underground or the wings of a plane flying at 500 MPH and 35,000 feet above Virginia,” he added. “Who knows where the Spirit will lead us next year?”