The Latin Church is part of the Catholic Church. Technically, it is described as an autonomous particular church. There are several such autonomous particular churches within the Catholic Church. Other examples are the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and the Syro-Malabar Church. They differ from each other in liturgy (ceremonies, vestments, chants, language), devotional traditions, theology, canon law, and pastors (even if in the same territory as another), but they all hold the same faith, and all see union with the bishop of Rome, the pope, as essential to being a Catholic.
The Latin Church is the largest of these, with a membership greater than all the others taken together. It arose in Western Europe and North Africa, an area throughout which Latin was once understood and spoken by every formally educated person. It is sometimes called the Western Church. All the other autonomous particular churches, of which there are 23, originated further east and are therefore collectively known as the Eastern Catholic Churches. Because of the facility with which people can nowadays take up residence in a different country, members of all of these autonomous particular churches are no longer confined to their areas of origin and can be found all over the world.
§Terminology
§"Church" and "rite"
The 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches defines the use within that Code (in hoc Codice) of the words "church" and "rite" as follows:
- Church: A group of Christian faithful united by a hierarchy according to the norm of law which the supreme authority of the Church expressly or tacitly recognizes as sui iuris is called in this Code a Church sui iuris.
- Rite: A rite is the liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony, culture and circumstances of history of a distinct people, by which its own manner of living the faith is manifested in each Church sui iuris.
In accordance with these definitions of usage within the Code that governs the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Latin Church is one such group of Christian faithful united by a hierarchy and recognized by the supreme authority of the Catholic Church as an autonomous particular church. The Latin rite is the whole of the patrimony of that distinct particular church, by which it manifests its own manner of living the faith, including its own liturgy, its theology, its spiritual practices and traditions and its canon law.
A person is a member of or belongs to a particular church. A person also inherits or "is of", a particular patrimony or rite. Since the rite has liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary elements, a person is also to worship, to be catechized, to pray and to be governed according to a particular rite.
Particular Churches that inherit and perpetuate a particular patrimony are identified by metonymy with that patrimony. Accordingly, "rite" has been defined as "a division of the Christian church using a distinctive liturgy", or simply as "a Christian Church" In this sense, "rite" and "Church" are treated as synonymous, as in the glossary prepared by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and revised in 1999, which states that each "Eastern-rite (Oriental) Church ... is considered equal to the Latin rite within the Church". The Second Vatican Council likewise stated that "it is the mind of the Catholic Church that each individual Church or Rite should retain its traditions whole and entire and likewise that it should adapt its way of life to the different needs of time and place". and spoke of patriarchs and of "major archbishops, who rule the whole of some individual church or rite". It thus used the word "rite" as "a technical designation of what may now be called a particular church". "Church or rite" is also used as a single heading in the United States Library of Congress classification of works.
§"Latin Catholic" and "Roman Catholic"
At times, the Holy See uses the term "Roman Catholic" (as well as simply "Catholic") to refer to the whole Catholic Church that is in communion with the Bishop and Church of Rome. It has never used the term "Roman Catholic" to refer exclusively to the Latin Church, and one would have to go back more than two and a half centuries to find a papal document that used "Roman" as equivalent to "Latin". The Holy See quite commonly uses the term "Roman" (again, not "Roman Catholic") with reference to the diocese of Rome, as in "Holy Roman Church". It does not use the term "Roman Church" to refer exclusively to the Latin Church, unlike the writer in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia who stated: "A German Catholic is not, strictly speaking, a member of the Church of Rome but of the Church of Cologne, or Munich-Freising, or whatever it may be, in union with and under the obedience of the Roman Church (although, no doubt, by a further extension Roman Church may be used as equivalent to Latin Church for the patriarchate)."
However, some Eastern Catholics use the expression "Roman Catholic" to mean "Latin Catholic", while others "are proud to call themselves Roman Catholics", and "Roman Catholic" sometimes appears in the compound name of Eastern Catholic churches and parishes.
§Distinguishing characteristics
§Liturgical patrimony
The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke on 24 October 1988 of the Latin liturgical rites as follows: "Several forms of the Latin rite have always existed, and were only slowly withdrawn, as a result of the coming together of the different parts of Europe. Before the Council there existed side by side with the Roman rite, the Ambrosian rite, the Mozarabic rite of Toledo, the rite of Braga, the Carthusian rite, the Carmelite rite, and best known of all, the Dominican rite, and perhaps still other rites of which I am not aware". Today, the most common Latin liturgical rites are the Roman Rite (either in its ordinary form or in an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite such as the 1962 version officially authorized for present-day use), the Ambrosian Rite, the Mozarabic Rite, and variations of the Roman Rite such as the Anglican Use. The 22 Eastern Catholic Churches share 5 families of liturgical rites: the Alexandrian Rite (shared by 2 churches), the Antiochene or West Syrian Rite (3 churches), the Armenian Rite (1 church), the Byzantine Rite (14 churches), and the Chaldean or East Syrian Rite (2 churches). The Latin liturgical rites, like the Armenian, are used only in a single autonomous particular church.
§Disciplinary patrimony
Canon law for the Latin Church was codified in the Code of Canon Law, of which there have been two editions, the first promulgated by Pope Benedict XV in 1917, and the second by Pope John Paul II in 1983. The Eastern Catholic Churches, which each have their own canon law, have in common the canons codified in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches of 1990.
In the Latin Church, the norm for administration of confirmation is that, except when in danger of death, the person to be confirmed should "have the use of reason, be suitably instructed, properly disposed, and able to renew the baptismal promises", and "the administration of the Most Holy Eucharist to children requires that they have sufficient knowledge and careful preparation so that they understand the mystery of Christ according to their capacity and are able to receive the body of Christ with faith and devotion." In the Eastern Churches these sacraments are usually administered immediately after baptism, even for an infant.
Celibacy, as a consequence of the duty to observe perfect continence, is obligatory for priests in the Latin Church. Rare exceptions are permitted for men who, after ministering as clergy in other churches, join the Catholic Church. This contrasts with the discipline in most Eastern Catholic Churches ordination, in which priesthood (but not episcopate) may be conferred on married men. In the Latin Church a married man may not be admitted even to the diaconate unless he is legitimately destined to remain a deacon and not become a priest. As in Eastern Catholic Churches, marriage after their ordination is not allowed. There is also no difference between the churches with regard to those who have taken religious vows of celibacy.
Bishops in the Latin Church are appointed by the Pope on the advice of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia. The synods of Eastern patriarchal and major archiepiscopal Churches elect bishops for their own territory, receiving from the Pope only letters of recognition; although the Pope can in fact veto the decision, this rarely if ever happens. The bishops for other territories and those of lesser Eastern Catholic Churches are appointed in the same way as Latin bishops, on the advice of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.
§See also
- Church of Rome (disambiguation)
- Communion (Christian)
- General Roman Calendar
- Latin Mass
- Mass (liturgy)
- Roman Catholic (term)
§References
§External links
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Latin Church
