Technically, the Church can elect ANYONE Pope. You don’t even have to be Catholic (or Christian). Once you accept the Office and are ordained Bishop (after being Baptized, if necessary) then you become Pope. Of course, as a practical matter, this would never happen. Not in modern times, anyway.Is it possible for an Eastern-rite Catholic to ever be Pope?
Actually, the USCCB says:Technically, the Church can elect ANYONE Pope. You don’t even have to be Catholic (or Christian). Once you accept the Office and are ordained Bishop (after being Baptized, if necessary) then you become Pope. Of course, as a practical matter, this would never happen. Not in modern times, anyway.
I don’t find that in Canon Law, though. This may be a statement of common sense rather than a statement of doctrine.Technically, any baptized Catholic man who is not a heretic, or in schism, or notorious for simony can be elected pope.
Eastern Catholics have been pope before, but I think that was before they were called separate rites. St. Peter was from an Eastern Catholic Church originally, if you look at it just from a geographical perspective. Have you ever heard of the Byzantine Papacy? That’s a name historians give to the popes from 537 to 752 A.D., and I think all the popes between those dates came from Eastern Catholic Churches. It is my understanding that those popes would have known Greek and celebrated the Byzantine liturgy.Is it possible for an Eastern-rite Catholic to ever be Pope?
Please enlighten me if this has ever happened; as far as I know, it hasn’t.
Thank you.
No. First, you have to be a male because you have to be ordained because as the Pope you’re also the Bishop of Rome. To be ordained you have to be a Catholic Christian in good standing.Technically, the Church can elect ANYONE Pope. You don’t even have to be Catholic (or Christian). Once you accept the Office and are ordained Bishop (after being Baptized, if necessary) then you become Pope. Of course, as a practical matter, this would never happen. Not in modern times, anyway.
A bishop could certainly come from the Eastern Half of the Catholic Church but as the Bishop of Rome, His Eastern identity would be lost.If you’re talking about Eastern rites in communion with the Holy See then nothing prevents someone from becoming Pope. There’s no rule that Popes can only be Latin-rite. But it is unlikely.
While the Church has had many Greek Popes, obviously nobody in the Greek Orthodox Church would be considered.
I want whomever the Holy Spirit guides the College of Cardinals to elect. Whether the next pope is Latin or Eastern, Black or White, or any other descriptor we can come up with does not matter to me much. It will be who God wants and that is all that matters.I want an African Pope next actually. Cardinal Peter Turkson to be precise.
A bishop could certainly come from the Eastern Half of the Catholic Church but as the Bishop of Rome, His Eastern identity would be lost.
The Pope, whatever Rite he is originally from, as head of the Universal Church can celebrate mass/divine liturgy according to any rite he wishes. He doesn’t “need” be to bi-ritual, the office of the Papacy allows this. It is true that as the bishop of Rome, he’ll now have an episcopal see in the Latin rite of the Church, but if he so wishes he could continue celebrating divine liturgy/mass as in his original rite – not that it’d be the most ideal thing to do.He could be bi-ritual. Technically. It would be weird, but doable.
Canon law guys would love it.
Thats not actually how conclaves work. But for th most part I agree with you. But I do have my favouritesI want whomever the Holy Spirit guides the College of Cardinals to elect. Whether the next pope is Latin or Eastern, Black or White, or any other descriptor we can come up with does not matter to me much. It will be who God wants and that is all that matters.
There were no rites back then. Sure he was an easterner, but is not the Latin rite, more specifically the Roman rite, not directly from him? He taught the Romans the liturgy and the faith. Unless in reality we are eastern too.Technically speaking as well, our very first Pope was Eastern-rite.
Did they celebrate the Eucharist?There were no rites back then. Sure he was an easterner, but is not the Latin rite, more specifically the Roman rite, not directly from him? He taught the Romans the liturgy and the faith. Unless in reality we are eastern too.
Rites are ways of celebrating the Eucharist. There may have been one rite in the 1st century (as described in the last supper, the book of Acts and the Didache) and over time, through cultures and other influences, the one rite became many rites which in reality are different expressions of the original apostolic rite of the last supper. Thats why I say in the beginning the were no rites (Roman, Mazorabic, byzantine, Syriac etc or Eastern vs Western) as we understand them today… Just a standard liturgy which all practiced.Did they celebrate the Eucharist?
Then they had a rite.
Two examples:I witnessed in passing coverage of the Conclaves that resulted in Popes Benedict XVI and Francis; all Cardinals wore the same red outfit. Is that outfit a Latin rite custom? Did the eastern rite Cardinals participate in these elections?
Actually, the identification, within Spain, of bishops who have this twofold Roman/Hispano-Mozarabic nature is more vague than it is in the Eastern rites, as only the Archdiocese of Toledo (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Tarragona and Seville) has maintained this rite as proper to itself, whose Metropolitan Archbishop and Primate of Spain is the Superior Responsible for the Rite, now Mons. Rodríguez Plaza; this is attested, for instance, by the eighteen Councils of Toledo. This also occurs because, as said by the Praenotanda of the Missale Hispano-Mozarabicum (Hispano-Mozarabic Missal) in n. 160: “Within the jurisdictional area of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, the obtention of the permission for the extraordinary celebration of the Mass in the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite shall be requested to the Ordinary of the place …] Before granting that permission, the Ordinary of the place …] will submit the documentation to the approval of the Archbishop of Toledo. Outside the Spanish state, the permission has to be requested to the Congregation for Divine Worship”.Spanish …] bishops do Mozarabic …] Rites …]