Will someone please explain changing rites? I don't get it

[Aramis]

Aramis,

In reading both your text and that of Woodstock, I am lost in trying to discern in what respect your post disagrees with what she has posted, other than the issue of children below 14 years being ascribed to Church sui iuris of the father versus the parents.

Many years,

Neil

Woodstock also asserts that one is bound solely to the Church Sui Iuris; one is in fact bound to the local ordinary (Usually a bishop/eparch) of that church sui iuris, but that is not to a specific person by virtue of enrollment, but by the combination of enrollment and location.

It really is a minor issue, save for when one is getting an annulment, release from vows or obligations, or permission for unusual marriage, or enrolling in a religious order.

But the concept that one has a bishop to go to for these matters is important, and moreso, that that bishop is usually of the same church, and where not, often of the same Rite, but in some cases is neither the same church nor rite. (Exempli Gratis: Russian Rite Catholics in the US are canonically bound the the local Roman Bishop, due to a lack of a Russian Church Sui Iuris hierarchy.)

 

[Irish_Melkite]

Woodstock also asserts that one is bound solely to the Church Sui Iuris; one is in fact bound to the local ordinary (Usually a bishop/eparch) of that church sui iuris, but that is not to a specific person by virtue of enrollment, but by the combination of enrollment and location.

Ok - in that case, you’re both stating it incorrectly …

One is committed to the pastoral care of the ordinary to whom you are canonically ascribed.

• In the instance of most Latin Catholics, that will be the ordinary within whose territorial diocese you reside (exceptions include those ascribed to personal prelatures, military ordinariates, and a few other ecclesial oddities).
• In the instance of most Eastern and Oriental Catholics, that will be the ordinary of the Church sui iuris to which you are canonically ascribed and within whose territorial diocese you reside.
• In the instance of those canonically ascribed to a Church sui iuris which has no canonical jurusdiction encompassing the place in which you reside, you are generally committed to the pastoral care of the local Latin ordinary (exceptions include ordinariates for faithful of the Eastern Rites, in countries where such exist, and such unique ecclesial considerations as the spiritual omophor exercised by the Melkite Eparch of Newton for St Andrew Russian Greek-Catholic Church in El Segundo, CA)

Many years,

Neil

 

[Woodstock]

Neil,

Thank you for the correction on the change of church with marriage for Latins, male or female. I won’t say who told me otherwise, but it would be disappointing to know.

As for Aramis’ correction, I wasn’t commenting on the local ordinary. I was commenting on not being ***born ***into a **rite, **but ***baptized ***into a Church.

I also point out that the canon says a child under the age of 14 is baptized into his father’s Church and so on and so forth as Neil bulleted on exceptions, whereas a child over 14 is able to be baptized into any Church sui iuris of his choosing independent of his parents’ enrollment. The Church is determined at the time of baptism, not on the child’s 14th birthday. If the child’s enrollment has been changed between baptism and age 14, after age 14 he may choose to return to the original Church. I don’t know how you get the below out of that.

Oh, and it’s not which parish baptized you, but which Church Sui Iuris your father was enrolled in on your 14th birthday

 

[Marina14]

I don’t understand this about switching rites. I’m Latin, but my impression is that I can attend Mass at, e.g., a Maronite parish all the time and there’s nothing wrong with doing it. Is it a matter of being an official member of the parish or something similar to that? If I went to the pastor and told him I want to join that Maronite parish, is he going to tell me I can’t unless I change rites? I’m reasonably sure he isn’t going to throw me out just because he observes that I sometimes genuflect by mistake and really struggle with the Syriac, but maybe I really can’t be a member of the parish in an official way.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. Can someone kindly explain?

Last week I spoke with a Roman Catholic priest who brought up to me that if someone wants to change Rites, it is always allowed for someone to change from the Roman Rite to an Eastern Rite, but usually rejected when someone from an Eastern Rite wants to change to the Roman Rite.

He said the reason for this is the Pope & Bishops see that in the Catholic Church the largest Rite is the Roman Rite and they do not want the Eastern Rites to “die out” so to speak as those Rites have a huge spiritual wealth with in the Catholic Church that they do not want to lose.

You can read Pope John Paul II’s encyclical: The Light of the East for his opinion on Eastern Christian Spirituality and Traditions.

 

[Aramis]

Last week I spoke with a Roman Catholic priest who brought up to me that if someone wants to change Rites, it is always allowed for someone to change from the Roman Rite to an Eastern Rite, but usually rejected when someone from an Eastern Rite wants to change to the Roman Rite.

He said the reason for this is the Pope & Bishops see that in the Catholic Church the largest Rite is the Roman Rite and they do not want the Eastern Rites to “die out” so to speak as those Rites have a huge spiritual wealth with in the Catholic Church that they do not want to lose.

You can read Pope John Paul II’s encyclical: The Light of the East for his opinion on Eastern Christian Spirituality and Traditions.

This is also covered in the V II Post Conciliar Documents; this reasoning is lain out clearly in there.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I am a rather western guy, and it’s hard for me to picture me thinking I ought to change Churches. I have a feeling there is a lot of inculturated understanding that would be hard for a person of my background to ever quite pick up. I remember a cousin of mine who traveled to Italy and, while driving to the Brenner Pass, saw a valley which she felt was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. She turned into that valley, deep in the Alps. As she progressed, it seemed more and more beautiful. Everything placed just right. Gardens, houses, everything. The colors were just right. Even the way the woods and fields were. All perfect. Then, after driving some miles, she came to a city limit sign that said “Caoria”. She was thunderstruck! She remembered her mother, of Italian ancestery, telling her that her grandmother came from a town in the alps near Austria named “Caoria”. A friend of mine had a similar experience on a bicycle tour of Germany. Like my cousin, he came to the “perfect place”. Only later did he learn his great grandfather had come from there. Something about the way things were designed; the way the people looked and acted. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

Things like that are hard to change; hard to learn. I am sure there are millions of tiny (and not so tiny) things a Ukrainian learns that have very deep roots; things that I, a western European by ancestery, could never quite pick up. I think that would be true even of very Americanized people of Ukrainian ancestery. And so, completely aside from a desire to preserve the integrity of the Eastern Churches, I think it is wise for a person of an Eastern Church to remain with it, and to keep his children in it. His children will pick up many of those subtle “Eastern Church” ways of thinking and feeling, no matter what, and it would be best to let them grow in understanding of something that is a part of themselves.

Having said that, I do not dispute that some Romans may properly be drawn to the Eastern Churches. I am sure there are wrong reasons, but I am equally sure there are right ones. I don’t know much about the Eastern Churches, other than that their liturgies, decor, etc are beautiful. But I think I know, just barely, that there is a deep mystical part of it, and I think I have known people who would have been drawn very strongly to it.

Finally, I have long thought dioceses should encourage Eastern liturgies in Latin parishes on occasion; in order to deepen understanding and the sense of brotherhood. But it’s rare. I do know that in St. Louis, every once in awhile one of the Eastern liturgies will be celebrated in the Cathedral. Interesting that the Latin Cathedral is very Byzantine in design and decor. There should be more of that.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Looking at my prior post, I thought I should clarify. I do not believe in “inborn memories”. I do believe all the subtle things to which we are exposed when we’re growing up have origins and stick with us more than we know. The way one’s mother chooses colors. The way she soothes a child to sleep. The arrangement of a kitchen or a father’s workbench. The kinds of flowers planted out front and the way they are arranged. The landscaping. The ways of speaking; of reacting to certain things. The things reverenced and those considered mundane. The way the family operates as a unit. The sources of authority and the way rules are laid down. The way one thinks about religion. All of those things have origins, and I believe those origins often stretch far back. They don’t absolutely dominate a person, but they resonate throughout a person’s life in subtle ways, and go from generation to generation.

 

[Aramis]

Ridgerunner:

I know the sense of “I belong here” of which you speak.

My dad’s family is “Polish,” and I’m beginning to think not “pure” Pole, but possibly Ruthenian or Cossack, based upon linguistic elements in both documents and my grandfather’s speech, plus the Icons brought over when they emigrated (1908).

When I entered a Byzantine parish the first time, it felt like home. Still does. Something no Roman parish has EVER had for me, no matter the liturgy. Something every Ruthenian parish I’ve been in has.

Russian Orthodox parishes feel like a good friend’s home… comfortable, but not “My Home.”

That is why I am, after 20 years of becoming intellectually Byzantine, still considering formally becoming a Ruthenian Catholic rather than a Roman. I spent the last 4 years in Roman Praxis. I could not go back. The parish was great, wonderful people, good and reverent liturgy, Vicar General & Canon Lawyer as Pastor, an SSPX trained priest as assistant pastor, two deacons (one of them my Dad), and the most vibrant KofC council in the state. It was not my spiritual home.

 

[ebed_melech]

Aramis,

I can so very much understand your thinking on this. I first encountered the East while studying undergraduate theology and then actually attended an Eastern Catholic parish (Holy Transfiguration Melkite in McClean, VA) for a semester of graduate theological study. After that, I never quite felt at home anywhere else.

My first impression that I shared with my lovely new bride at the time after attending a Byzantine service was that I had always believed in the Resurrection, I had never quite experienced it that way before. It really touched me in a way that changed me forever.

Almost 20 years later, I continue to fall ever more deeply in love with being fully Eastern and fully Catholic. Even my wife, who remained Latin in our transfer (the kiddos and I) while still being an active and full member of our Eastern Catholic parish has come around to say that she is not sure she can ever feel fully at home in a Latin parish again. Once you wake up and smell the incense, if it is home for you, there is no going back!

In ICXC,

Gordo

“We did not know if we were in heaven or on earth!”

 

[wannabee]

Total agreement - there’s nothing quite like it

 

[Hesychios]

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Ridgerunner:

I know the sense of “I belong here” of which you speak.

My dad’s family is “Polish,” and I’m beginning to think not “pure” Pole, but possibly Ruthenian or Cossack, based upon linguistic elements in both documents and my grandfather’s speech, plus the Icons brought over when they emigrated (1908).

Hello brother Aramis,
Such evidence may be a good indication of your ancestry, something that could be overlooked by many others who are not very aware of the little nuances of culture in eastern Europe.

But if your family has identified with “Polish” it probably has something to do with the political-cultural situation in Europe over the last several generations (or possibly few hundred years). His Holiness John Paul II himself declared that his own mother was a ‘Rusin’, which many take to have meant ‘Ukrainian’ to him and Poles of his time and place.

Anyway, don’t forget that the people who are called Polish today were originally evangelized by the missions of Ss Cyril and Methodius into the eastern “Methodian” rite, not under Mieszko I and Boleslaw into the Latin rite as is sometimes claimed (as through the ministrations of St. Adalbert). One must read between the lines of the accounts in order to get the complete picture…but Bohemia, Slovakia, southern Poland and the plains of Hungary were all part of the Moravian kingdom (or empire), a rather large, if unstable political entity in central Europe. It was to this land, and your ancestors, that the brothers (co-evangelists of Europe - proclaimed by Pope JP II) brought Christ.

As you are aware, these places are predominantly RC today, but it is no mystery as to why Eastern Christianity has a special appeal among the people.

Michael