Q: I found myself increased gonna the fresh Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Divine Liturgies as the my personal parents preferred one Liturgy towards Novus Ordo Size regarding the Roman Rite. Even when my father are about Roman Rite (and so I have already been informed I am Roman Catholic no matter if I was baptized and you can affirmed regarding Ukrainian Greek Rite), we always went to, and that i still even today sit in, brand new Ukrainian Greek Rite from praise.

My partner was Latin Catholic and we also was married regarding Ukrainian Catholic Chapel. Does this make the relationships invalid? Otherwise really does the fresh new “Chapel bring” for it version of simple error? Are one step expected? I am ready to reconcile any conditions that occur. –Kyle

Thus he’s really Catholic, revealing a similar believe, an identical sacraments

A: It’s instinct-wrenching to need to respond to questions along these lines one, and it is way more humdrum to find out that the exact same courtroom disease happen way too apparently. Which is also, the brand new Pope recently provided a keen Apostolic Page you to definitely joins on this extremely subject-therefore why don’t we examine exactly what one another canon rules hence Apostolic Letter need state about any of it, along with very creating we shall come to the answer to Kyle’s matter.

Back in “Will they be Really Catholic? Area We,” we noticed that not all of the Catholics are Roman (i.e., Latin) Catholics. This new non-Latin of them is situated in geographical regions essentially toward east from Rome-and additionally Northeastern Africa, the guts East, East Europe and India-this is exactly why he’s popularly known as east Catholic Church buildings. Most of them exist now given that in ages previous, significant numbers of Orthodox clergy and you can devoted returned to complete communion towards Catholic Chapel.

As was discussed in “Can a Catholic Ever Attend an Orthodox Liturgy Instead of Catholic Mass?” the Orthodox Churches are not in communion with Rome. The Orthodox officially broke away from the Catholic Church back in the year 1054, and they have been in a state of schism ever since. Canon 751 tells us that the term schism refers to the withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff, or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him. This means that while Churches such as the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox still have validly ordained priests and bishops, they do not recognize the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and the supreme head of the Church on earth.

In contrast, the abovementioned groups of former-Orthodox-turned-Catholics accept the authority of the Pope as the head of the Church. and the same governance as Latin Catholics (cf. c. 205). The different groupings of Catholics are known in technical parlance as Churches sui iuris. The Ukrainian Catholic Church that Kyle mentions is an example of this. The Latin Catholic Church, which comprises the lion’s share of Catholics around the world, is a Catholic Church sui iuris too.

Based on how you count them, there are actually regarding the twenty some other groupings of Catholics in the world today

As has already been discussed in the posts referenced above, Catholics can fulfill their Sunday obligation by attending Mass at any Catholic Church sui iuris, whether they’re members of that Church or not. And it doesn’t make any difference whether Catholics attend Mass at a different Catholic Church because they’re physically unable to get to one of their own; or because they simply prefer it, like Kyle’s parents. So a Latin Catholic can attend the Sunday Divine Liturgy at, let’s say, a Ruthenian Catholic parish, and that’s just as good as attending a Mass at any Latin Catholic parish. He can receive Holy Communion and go to confession there, too (cc. 923 and 991). As was said earlier, Catholics all share the same sacraments-the ritual in which they’re celebrated doesn’t matter.