The further organization of these Churches will be described in the course of this book. So far we have noted only the groups themselves in order to understand who they are, and the plan of our arrangement.
- 3. Religion, Patriarchate, Rite, Language, Place.
Now we come to exceedingly important distinctions, too often confused. These five qualities must be carefully distinguished. The religious body to which a Christian may belong, the Patriarchate of which he is a member, the rite used by him or by his clergy, the language in which that rite is used, and, lastly, the place where he happens to live, are all different ideas; most of them occur in all kinds of different combinations. A man's religion is not implied by the rite he uses. Rite is one thing, union in any given religious body is quite another. Within the Catholic Church all rites occur. It is an unpardonable error, which ought never to be made by educated people, to imagine that all Catholics are Latins, or that there is any inherent reason why a Catholic should use the Roman rite. Nor is there any superiority, any more Catholic quality in the use of the Roman rite than in the use of any other. In this matter we stand exactly where we always have stood. In the days of the great Fathers, would anyone suggest that St Athanasius, St John Chrysostom, St Augustine were imperfect Catholics? Yet none of these used the Roman rite. The ideal of the Catholic Church has always been perfect unity in the Faith. All Catholics believe exactly the same things, as far as the Faith is concerned. Her ideal has never been uniformity in rite. So little did the Popes care about this, that they were the only Patriarchs who allowed variety of rites within their own Patriarchate. While each Eastern Patriarch enforced uniformity by the use of his own rite throughout his Patriarchate, the Popes let the Gallican rite be used over far the greater part of theirs. When St Augustine wrote to St Gregory asking him what he was to do in the matter of rite in the English Church, it might seem a fine opportunity for the Pope to have the Roman rite adopted, at least by this new Church. Yet so little did St Gregory think this detail mattered that he simply told Augustine to adopt any liturgical customs that he thought suitable, whether from Rome or Gaul or anywhere.[1]
That is always the attitude of the Holy See. The Popes
- ↑ Greg. I, Ep. xi, 64 (P.L. lxxvii, col. 1187).
