Question for Latin Catholics.... (yes this belongs in this section)

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Tradycja

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I have a question for Latin Catholics…

Has your priest ever explained the Eastern Traditions of the Catholic Church from the pulpit? Ever encouraged people to explore the East? Have you ever had a mention in your Church bulletin about the existence of the East?

For me I have not heard a latin rite parish priest mention ANYTHING even so much as acknowledging the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches in a sermon.

Regarding diocesan priests I must say that when I lived in Phoenix there was a bi-ritual priest at the Melkite Church there and it seemed like he really promoted knowledge of the East to his Latin flock.

My great Aunt (polish descent) lives near a UGCC Church. I STILL cannot convince her that it is a Catholic Church.
 
No. Never from the pulpit. I’m not even sure we were taught about the Eastern Catholic Churches in RCIA (they may have been a footnote, IDK) and when rehearsing for the first core night (8th-grade youth group thing that us high schoolers helped out with) the man speaking said, “The Catholic Church is the ONLY church that teaches that we have the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. …Well, aside from the, Eastern Catholic Churches…” It was like a slap in the face, even to a Roman Catholic like me. It almost sounded like he didn’t think the Eastern Catholics were just as much the Catholic Church as the Roman Church was, and he clearly either didn’t know about the EO or OO, or didn’t know what they taught. 🤷
 
Tradycja said:
I have a question for Latin Catholics…

Has your priest ever explained the Eastern Traditions of the Catholic Church from the pulpit? Ever encouraged people to explore the East? Have you ever had a mention in your Church bulletin about the existence of the East?

For me I have not heard a latin rite parish priest mention ANYTHING even so much as acknowledging the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches in a sermon.

Regarding diocesan priests I must say that when I lived in Phoenix there was a bi-ritual priest at the Melkite Church there and it seemed like he really promoted knowledge of the East to his Latin flock.

My great Aunt (polish descent) lives near a UGCC Church. I STILL cannot convince her that it is a Catholic Church.
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I’ve heard a dozen different priests speak of the Eastern Rites from the pulpit.

I’ve seen a priest invite his parishioners to attend the EC services, and seen a pastor ask an EC priest to celebrate the divine liturgy in his parish for his parishioners.
 
Two years ago a Latin Church near me celebrated a different Eastern Catholic Liturgy every Wednesday during Lent.
 
A few years ago I had the humble honor of being one of a five-man group chosen to provide vocal responses and appropriate hymns for a Roman Catholic Mass presided over by Francis Cardinal George of Chicago. His Emminence used his entire homily to describe a recent visit to Ukraine and, specifically, his visit with a Ukranian Greek Catholic matushka (priest’s wife). He told the stories she had related to him about the extreme, secretive measures that she, her priest husband and their congregation had to take just to be able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy undetected by the then-ruling Communist party. He also used the homily as an opportunity to present an awareness of the Eastern Catholic Church and her differing customs and praxes (e.g., a married priesthood) to the overwhelmingly predominant Roman Catholic congregation in participatory attendance at this Mass.

As a canonical Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic (probably the only one in attendance) I was both proud and humbled by the words that His Emminence spoke.
 
Sadly, no priest that I’ve met has. Shame really, as I like the traditions of the Eastern Rite churches. I am about to go to seminary, and I have thought about if how I’m ever ordained, I will try to get my parish educated on the existence of other Rites. Perhaps even try to improve relations by holding some events with Eastern Catholics. This however, is a wild fantasy that probably will not be able to be fulfilled for another decade.
 
Biedrik said:
Sadly, no priest that I’ve met has. Shame really, as I like the traditions of the Eastern Rite churches. I am about to go to seminary, and I have thought about if how I’m ever ordained, I will try to get my parish educated on the existence of other Rites. Perhaps even try to improve relations by holding some events with Eastern Catholics. This however, is a wild fantasy that probably will not be able to be fulfilled for another decade.
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Once you are a pastor, you can tackle that with relative ease… assuming other, far more pressing matters of “typical latin ignorance” don’t take up all your time.
 
Yes, one priest mentions them occasionally. There are icons at this parish too 🙂 But it’s a Traditional Latin Mass parish.
 
Sadly not for me. I almost ventured into the Orthodox Church out of curiosity, but luckily I discovered Eastern Catholics. I’m planning on making Divine Liturgy part of my regular routine, although I will still attend my current Latin Rite parish regularly.

There are Latin Rite parishes around our archdiocese where it is shared by an Eastern Rite (one is Chaldean, another is Melkite, so far these are what I have discovered. A UGCC also shares with a Latin Rite parish in another part of the province). I am not sure if the parishioners there are more aware of the Eastern Rite.
 
Tradycja said:
I have a question for Latin Catholics…

Has your priest ever explained the Eastern Traditions of the Catholic Church from the pulpit? Ever encouraged people to explore the East? Have you ever had a mention in your Church bulletin about the existence of the East?

For me I have not heard a latin rite parish priest mention ANYTHING even so much as acknowledging the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches in a sermon.

Regarding diocesan priests I must say that when I lived in Phoenix there was a bi-ritual priest at the Melkite Church there and it seemed like he really promoted knowledge of the East to his Latin flock.

My great Aunt (polish descent) lives near a UGCC Church. I STILL cannot convince her that it is a Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
Lamentably, no. Thanks for the question.
 
We have a priest who does not mention Purgatory *on All Souls’ Day, *much less the Eastern Churches.

But I do love the Divine Liturgy, which I get to go to once a year… if I’m lucky.
 
Honestly, I do not see why a priest should mention other Churches during a homily. However, I think that such kind of instruction should be mandated during catechism classes at least when the teacher addresses the history of the Church. I am a member of the Latin Church and I also try to attend the Maronite and Byzantine Divine Liturgies as often as I can. As a catechist in the Latin Church this year I will make an effort to bring the pre-confirmation kids to a Divine Liturgy as well as to the EF.
 
Our Melkite parish is constantly working to share the Eastern experience with the “rest of the Church.” We offer tours, special services, lectures - anything we can do to scream out our existance. While most Romans remain ignorant, we have had many successes. Two local universities (one Catholic) have regular visits, as do several local Catholic schools and the local Roman seminary. We have taken the liturgy ‘on the road’ into a number of Roman parishes and even to a local ‘ethnic festival.’

But it is always an issue. I worked for 16 years in a Catholic school and still had new theology teachers ask me “who is the head of your church?”

My own mother had a hard time understanding my change of rite - until I showed her articles from Catholic magazines that she subscribed to. I now keep photocopies of those articles and present them to any and all Romans who look bewildered by the existance of Catholics who are not Roman. 🙂
 
The answer to the O.P. is, no, never.

In my personal experience, the average Catholic has only a vague notion of Eastern Catholics.

They have heard of the Greek Orthodox, but have little knowledge of what/whom they are.
They have heard of Eastern Catholics, but have little to no knowledge of them.

Most people seem to operate under the understanding that Catholicism is only Roman Catholicism, and have little/ no knowledge of other liturgical rites, except that the priest’s wear fancier vestments and they use a lot more incense.
 
Tradycja said:
I have a question for Latin Catholics…

Has your priest ever explained the Eastern Traditions of the Catholic Church from the pulpit? Ever encouraged people to explore the East? Have you ever had a mention in your Church bulletin about the existence of the East?

For me I have not heard a latin rite parish priest mention ANYTHING even so much as acknowledging the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches in a sermon.

Regarding diocesan priests I must say that when I lived in Phoenix there was a bi-ritual priest at the Melkite Church there and it seemed like he really promoted knowledge of the East to his Latin flock.

My great Aunt (polish descent) lives near a UGCC Church. I STILL cannot convince her that it is a Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
My priest has talked about the Eastern Catholic churches during a homily 🙂
 
We had some Orthodox nuns who came, gave a talk after Mass and sold some ikons to pay for their work with the poor in Belarus once.

I may have heard a priest once mention Eastern liturgical practices where they shed some light on the meaning of our faith.

A sister at our parish also wants to arrange for a group of us to visit the Syro Malabar Liturgy at a nearby parish.
 
I have never heard a priest talk of our Eastern Sister Churches from the pulpit. It wasn’t until I began my own faith search into Orthodoxy that in talking with my (Roman) parish priest, that I learned much about it. He’s been very understanding , by the way, and had encouraged me to explore the Eastern Churches and particularly our Eastern Catholic Churches. The journey has given me a greater appreciation of Catholicism as a whole now. East and West can learn much from each other. I’m very drawn to the Eastern Divine Liturgy. Our Eastern Churches are (in my humble opinion) under appreciated by the West.
🙂
Your sister in Christ,
“Kokomoka”
 
During Lent, a group from our Latin parish took a- for lack of a better term- “field trip” to a Ukrainian Catholic Church and participated in a Divine Liturgy.

My band teacher at my Catholic school was Ukrainian Catholic… I always wondered why he crossed himself “funny” 😉
 
Tradycja said:
I have a question for Latin Catholics…

Has your priest ever explained the Eastern Traditions of the Catholic Church from the pulpit? Ever encouraged people to explore the East? Have you ever had a mention in your Church bulletin about the existence of the East?

For me I have not heard a latin rite parish priest mention ANYTHING even so much as acknowledging the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches in a sermon.

Regarding diocesan priests I must say that when I lived in Phoenix there was a bi-ritual priest at the Melkite Church there and it seemed like he really promoted knowledge of the East to his Latin flock.

My great Aunt (polish descent) lives near a UGCC Church. I STILL cannot convince her that it is a Catholic Church.
Click to expand...
I can answer a sort of to that question.

I can distinctly recall a priest mentioning the emphasis on mystery in the Greek Orthodox Mass, and actually telling us parishioners that, if we got the chance, we ought to go watch a Greek Orthodox mass. By that, he wasn’t indicating that we should skip our Roman Catholic Mass, but only that we ought to take in a Greek Orthodox service if we had the chance. Granted, this isn’t really a yes to your question, but it’s almost a yes.

Secondly, I can recall one of our Priests taking a retreat at a Marionite monastery in the state, and very much enjoying it. He had a regular connection with them. So that’s a second yes, I guess. He did discuss it from the pulpit a bit.

As a total aside, in this small rural community, many of the divisions that seem so big elsewhere really do not exist here to the same extent. Perhaps folks like us ought to be assigned the task of reunification. FWIW, many years ago, before the Greek Orthodox Church was able to build its first church, they used our church. They simply, by permission, held their masses on Sunday at an assigned time. I guess in that manner we were replicating the late situation in the Hagia Sophia.
 
Yes, I have. On several occasions I’ve heard reference to the East’s married priesthood. Also, I remember picking up a bulletin once at St Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Chicago, and seeing that they were having a combined religious procession with St Helen RC Church in the neighborhood.
 
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