THE P RTAL
June 2015
Page 9
The Catholic Churches:
Unity in Diversity
Dr Harry Schnitker examines the various “rites” of the Catholic Church
Many Catholics
think of their Church as a Latin or post-Latin one, and assume that the Mass,
as they know it, is the uniform practice of the Church. It is an easy conclusion to arrive at: what is
known as the Latin Rite Church constitutes the vast majority of the dioceses which acknowledge the Holy
Father as the successor of St Peter and head of the Catholic Church. Out of a total of 1.2 billion Catholics,
only some 17 million follow the various Oriental Rites.
For many, the first time that they caught a glimpse
of their Oriental Rite brethren was during the funeral
of Pope John Paul II, when two Oriental Rite priests
sang the Office of the Dead of the Byzantine Rite over
the coffin, using both Greek and Arabic as liturgical
languages. It was a startling sight, and one that brought
the existence of these Churches forcefully to the fore.
the Rites of the Church
in antiquity. Once this is grasped, the rest follows
automatically. These liturgical families are the
Byzantine, Alexandrian and Antiochene or Syriac,
from which derive the Chal dean and Armenian Rites.
‘Rite’, then, refers to the liturgical-cultural foundations
of a particular Church, the Roman one, that use one
of these three major Rites, but which are united with
Rome.
Amongst the Alexandrian family are the Coptic,
Ethiopian and Eritrean Catholic Churches. Amongst
the Antiochene are the Maronite, Armenian,
Chaldean, Syro-Malabarese, Syro-Malankarese and
Syriac Churches. The Byzantine family is the largest,
encompassing large entities, such as the Ukrainian
There are also the Mozarabic Rite, once wide-spread Church, as well as tiny ones, like the Bulgarian or
in Spain, but now confined to the cathedral of Toledo Belarussian Churches.
and six parishes; the Ambrosian Rite, which is in use
through most of the archdiocese of Milan; and the united by the Pope
Bragan Rite, still used occasionally in the Portuguese
As the above shows, it is incorrect to speak of a
primatial see of Braga.
Catholic Church. The Body of Christ is a collection of
different Churches, united by their acknowledgement
Finally, of the religious orders, only the Carthusians of the Pope as their head. Some regard the Ordinariate
have maintained their own Rite, with both Benedictines in this light: a separate Church. It is not. The
and Cistercians still using a variant form for the liturgy Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus merely
of the hours.
formalised a government structure for the already
existing Anglican Use, which was in place in some
four liturgical families
parishes in the USA.
What exactly do we mean when we talk of a ‘Rite’? In
essence, the Rite of a Church is the way in which the
Sacraments are celebrated. The major and predominant
Rite is the Roman one, which now has the Ordinary
and Extra-Ordinary form.
and 24 Churches
It may be clear, then, that even in the Latin Church
there are some significant divergences. These are all
the greater when we examine the Oriental Rites. These
may be divided into four distinct liturgical families,
and into no fewer than 24 Churches, of which three, the
Russian Catholic, Georgian Catholic and Belarussian
Catholic, may be considered to be all but extinct, and
one, the Eritrean, which was erected only very recently.
A ‘Use’ is rather different from a ‘Rite’. It is a particular
version of a Rite, in the case of the Ordinariate based
on the medieval Sarum Use, as filtered through the
reformed, Anglican Church. There were, at one time,
many of these Uses in the Latin Church, before the
Council of Trent abolished all but a handful of them.
Yet the Ordinariate is more than a ‘Use’. Its structures
overlap those of the existing Latin Rite Church, and so
it also resembles the Churches using Eastern Rites. In
This profusion of Churches is less confusing than this series, I wish to explore these Churches, and see
one would assume at first glance. They belong to what lessons there may be learned from them for the
only three liturgical families, which have their roots Ordinariate.
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