The Rites of the Catholic Church: Latin and Eastern

The Second Vatican Council described how the churches founded by the apostles and their successors grew, over the centuries, into several groups. They keep one faith and one constitution, the Council said, while each has "their own discipline, their own liturgical usage, and their own theological and spiritual heritage." ³ Its decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches, Orientalium Ecclesiarum, puts it more directly: the one Catholic Church is made up of particular churches or rites, and this variety does not harm the Church's unity but shows it. ²

The same decree is careful about rank. These churches are all entrusted to the pastoral government of the Pope, they are of equal dignity, and none is superior to another because of its rite. ² The Eastern Churches have the right and the duty to govern themselves by their own disciplines, and to keep their own liturgy, changing it only by organic growth. ² The Catechism says the same of the rites themselves: the Church holds every lawfully recognized rite to be of equal right and dignity. ¹

So an Eastern Catholic is not a Roman Catholic who uses a different Mass, and is not a half-member of the Church. A Melkite Catholic in Boston and a Latin Catholic in Boston belong to the same Catholic Church, under the same Pope, but to different churches within it, each with its own bishop.

Canon law separates two ideas that everyday speech tends to run together. The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, promulgated by John Paul II in 1990, defines a church sui iuris (Latin for "of its own law") as a community of the faithful joined together under its own hierarchy and recognized as self-governing by the supreme authority of the Church. ⁴ A rite, in the same Code, is a liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony, shaped by the culture and history of a people, which shows itself in each church's own way of living the faith. ⁴

A rite, in other words, is an inheritance; a church sui iuris is a body of people with its own bishops. The two do not line up one to one. The Byzantine Rite is shared by fourteen different Eastern Catholic Churches, the Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Melkite and Romanian among them, each with its own hierarchy. ⁵ The Code says that, unless otherwise stated, the rites it governs come from five traditions: the Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, Chaldean and Constantinopolitan (that is, Byzantine). ⁴

Counted this way, the Catholic Church is made up of 24 churches sui iuris: the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. By liturgical family, fourteen of the Eastern Churches are Byzantine, three Alexandrian, three West Syriac (Antiochene), two East Syriac (Chaldean) and one Armenian. ⁵

People often say "the Latin Rite" when they mean the Latin Church, or when they mean the Roman Rite. Both uses are common, and both are loose. The Latin Church is the church sui iuris; the Roman Rite is its principal liturgy, but not its only one. The Catechism describes the Latin tradition as "principally the Roman rite, but also the rites of certain local churches, such as the Ambrosian rite, or those of certain religious orders." ¹

The Roman Rite is what nearly every Catholic parish in the United States celebrates. Its ordinary form today is the Mass of the Roman Missal promulgated after the Council by Paul VI. Pope Francis's motu proprio Traditionis custodes (2021) calls the liturgical books promulgated by Paul VI and John Paul II "the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite," and reserves to each diocesan bishop the authority to permit the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese. ⁶ The older Missal, often called the Traditional Latin Mass, is therefore not a separate rite but an earlier form of the Roman one. The guide to the Mass compares the two side by side.

Two other forms of the Roman Rite are worth knowing about. Benedict XVI's Anglicanorum coetibus (2009) set up personal ordinariates for former Anglicans and gave them the faculty, without excluding the ordinary Roman liturgy, to celebrate the Eucharist and the other sacraments using liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition and approved by the Holy See. ⁷ The Holy See approved their missal, Divine Worship: The Missal, in 2015; it draws on the Book of Common Prayer and older Anglican missals, and it is treated as an expression of the Roman Rite. ⁹ In the United States this is the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, erected on January 1, 2012, with its principal church in Houston, and equivalent in law to a diocese; it also serves Canada. ⁸⁹ In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, dioceses use the Roman Missal for the Dioceses of Zaire, which Vatican News describes as the only inculturated rite of the Latin Church approved after the Council. It brings in drums, African rhythms and liturgical dance, and Pope Francis has praised it for doing so without distorting the nature of the Roman Missal. ¹⁰

The best known Latin liturgy that is not Roman is the Ambrosian Rite of Milan. It carries the name of Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the fourth century, though the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia notes there is no direct evidence that he composed it. It is used in the Archdiocese of Milan and in some neighboring territory, including parts of the Swiss canton of Ticino. ¹¹

Its calendar is where a visitor notices it first. Ambrosian Advent lasts six weeks instead of four, beginning on the Sunday after the feast of Saint Martin in mid-November; the Archdiocese of Milan, for example, gave the first Sunday of Advent in 2022 as November 13. ¹¹¹² Lent begins on its first Sunday rather than on a Wednesday, so there is no Ash Wednesday in the Ambrosian calendar. ¹¹

The other surviving local liturgy is the Hispanic or Mozarabic Rite, among the oldest liturgical traditions of the West. When the Roman liturgy spread through Spain in the eleventh century, Toledo obtained permission to keep it. Around 1500 Cardinal Cisneros had its books collected and printed and founded the Mozarabic Chapel in Toledo Cathedral, where it is still celebrated every morning. ¹³ A few religious orders also kept liturgical uses of their own, which is what the Catechism means by "the rites of certain religious orders." ¹

The Eastern Catholic Churches grew up in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, India and Northeast Africa. Several came to the United States with immigrants, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lists eighteen Eastern Catholic eparchies (the Eastern word for a diocese) headquartered here. ¹⁴ Grouped by liturgical family, they are:

• Byzantine: the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia and the eparchies of Stamford, Saint Nicholas in Chicago and Saint Josaphat in Parma; the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh and the eparchies of Passaic, Parma and the Holy Protection of Mary of Phoenix; the Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy of Newton; and the Romanian Catholic Eparchy of Saint George in Canton. ¹⁴
• West Syriac (Antiochene): the Maronite eparchies of Saint Maron of Brooklyn and of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles; the Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance of Newark; and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy of Saint Mary, Queen of Peace, which covers the United States and Canada. ¹⁴
• East Syriac (Chaldean): the Chaldean eparchies of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Detroit and of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego, and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle of Chicago. ¹⁴
• Armenian: the Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Nareg in Glendale. ¹⁴

The Alexandrian family, which includes the Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean Catholic Churches, has no eparchy of its own in the United States. ⁵¹⁴

Yes. A Latin Catholic may go to Mass in any Catholic church of any rite, and may receive Communion there if properly disposed. The Latin Code of Canon Law says the faithful "can participate in the eucharistic sacrifice and receive holy communion in any Catholic rite." ¹⁵ It also says that the Sunday obligation is satisfied by assisting at Mass "celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite," on the day itself or on the evening before. ¹⁶ A Byzantine or Maronite liturgy on Sunday morning counts.

Much will look different. Most Byzantine churches have an iconostasis, a screen of icons between the nave and the sanctuary with three doors in it; the icon of Christ hangs to the right of the central Royal Doors and the icon of the Mother of God to the left. ¹⁷ A Byzantine Catholic parish in the Eparchy of Parma tells visitors that the congregation stands and sits but rarely kneels at a Sunday liturgy, that leavened bread is used, and that Communion is given from a spoon: cross your hands over your chest, tilt your head back, open your mouth and keep your tongue back. ¹⁸ The details vary from one Eastern Church to another, so watch what the people around you do, and ask the priest afterward if you are unsure.

You may also see a baby receive Communion. In the Eastern rites a child is baptized, chrismated (confirmed) and given the Eucharist in a single celebration, and the Catechism notes that the Eastern Churches give Communion to all the newly baptized, even little children. ¹⁹ And the priest may well be married. The Catechism explains that in the Eastern Churches married men can be ordained deacons and priests, while bishops are chosen only from among celibates, a discipline it calls legitimate and long-standing. ²⁰

Every Catholic belongs to one church sui iuris, ordinarily the one he or she was baptized into, following the parents. Going to an Eastern Catholic parish for years, even receiving every sacrament there, does not change it; the Latin Code says so explicitly. ²¹ A formal transfer needs the permission of the Holy See, with two main exceptions in the law: a spouse may declare at marriage, or during it, that he or she is joining the other spouse's church, and young children follow a parent who transfers. A transfer takes effect by a declaration before the local bishop or the pastor and two witnesses, and is noted in the baptismal register. ²¹

The Council asked every Catholic to keep and cherish his or her own rite wherever they live. ² Anyone drawn to an Eastern Church is free to worship there; changing church is a separate step, best talked through with a pastor.

The Eastern Catholic Churches share their liturgical traditions, and often their music and the look of their churches, with the Orthodox churches of the same families. The difference is communion: the Eastern Catholic Churches are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, and the Orthodox churches are not. The Council recalled that for many centuries the East and the West followed separate ways while linked in a brotherly union of faith, and it said plainly that the Orthodox churches, though separated, "possess true sacraments, above all by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist." ²²

Because full communion is not restored, a Catholic does not ordinarily receive Communion in an Orthodox church. The Latin Code allows it only in real necessity or for genuine spiritual benefit, when it is physically or morally impossible to reach a Catholic minister, and where the sacraments are valid. ²³ The Orthodox churches have their own discipline on who may receive, and a Catholic visitor should respect it. Orientalium Ecclesiarum itself describes its arrangements as holding until the Catholic Church and the separated Eastern Churches come together in full unity. ²

GraceBook's liturgical resources are written for the Latin Church, and most describe the Roman Rite. The guide to the Mass walks through the Roman Mass. The liturgical calendar and the feast-day pages follow the Roman calendar, and the Liturgy of the Hours guide describes the Roman breviary. An Eastern Catholic has a different liturgy, a different calendar of feasts and fasts, and a different daily office, all set by his or her own Church. ²

The same goes for law. The guide to confession and the examination of conscience cite the Latin Code of Canon Law, which governs Latin Catholics; Eastern Catholics are governed by the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches and the particular law of their own Church. ⁴ The heart of the sacrament is the same everywhere, but the details, including the days of fasting and abstinence, can differ. If you are an Eastern Catholic, your own parish and eparchy are the place to ask.