Latin Church
Largest autonomous particular Catholic church / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Latin Church (Latin: Ecclesia Latina) is the largest autonomous (sui iuris) particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 churches sui iuris in full communion with the pope; the other 23 are collectively referred to as the Eastern Catholic Churches, and have approximately 18 million members combined.[3]
 Latin Church | |
|---|---|
| Ecclesia Latina | |
 Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, Italy | |
| Type | Particular church (sui iuris) |
| Classification | Catholic |
| Orientation | Western Christianity |
| Scripture | Bible |
| Theology | Catholic theology |
| Polity | Episcopal[1] |
| Governance | Holy See |
| Pope | Francis |
| Full communion | Catholic Church |
| Region | Mainly in Western Europe, Central Europe, the Americas, the Philippines, pockets of Africa, Madagascar, Oceania, with several episcopal conferences around the world |
| Language | Ecclesiastical Latin |
| Liturgy | Latin liturgical rites |
| Headquarters | Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, Rome, Italy |
| Territory | Worldwide |
| Origin | 1st century Rome, Roman Empire |
| Separations |
|
| Members | 1.2 billion (2015)[2] |
| Other name(s) |
|
| Official website | Holy See |
The Latin Church is directly headed by the pope in his role as the bishop of Rome, whose cathedra as a bishop is located in the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, Italy. The Latin Church both developed within and strongly influenced Western culture; as such, it is also known as the Western Church (Latin: Ecclesia Occidentalis). It is also known as the Roman Church (Latin: Ecclesia Romana),[4][5] the Latin Catholic Church,[6][7] and in some contexts as the Roman Catholic Church (though this name can also refer to the Catholic Church as a whole).[8][lower-alpha 1] One of the pope's traditional titles in some eras and contexts has been the Patriarch of the West.[9]
The Latin Church was in full communion with what is referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church until the East-West schism of Rome and Constantinople in 1054. From that time, but also before it, it became common to refer to Western Christians as Latins in contrast to Byzantines or Greeks.
The Latin Church employs the Latin liturgical rites, which since the mid-20th century are very often translated into the vernacular. The predominant liturgical rite is the Roman Rite, elements of which have been practiced since the fourth century.[10] There exist and have existed since ancient times additional Latin liturgical rites and uses, including the currently used Mozarabic Rite in restricted use in Spain, the Ambrosian Rite in parts of Italy, and the Anglican Use in the personal ordinariates.
In the early modern period and subsequently, the Latin Church carried out evangelizing missions to the Americas, and from the late modern period to Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century resulted in Protestantism breaking away, resulting in the fragmentation of Western Christianity, including not only Protestant offshoots of the Latin Church, but also smaller groups of 19th-century break-away Independent Catholic denominations.
Name
The historical part of the Catholic Church in the West is called the Latin Church to distinguish itself from the Eastern Catholic Churches which are also under the pope's primacy. In historical context, before the East–West Schism in 1054 the Latin Church is sometimes referred to as the Western Church. Writers belonging to various Protestant denominations sometime use the term Western Church as an implicit claim to legitimacy.[clarification needed]
The term Latin Catholic refers to followers of the Latin liturgical rites, of which the Roman Rite is predominant. The Latin liturgical rites are contrasted with the liturgical rites of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
"Church" and "rite"
The 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches defines the use within that code of the words "church" and "rite".[11][12] 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 a sui iuris 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 Catholic, as an individual person, is necessarily a member of a particular church. A person also inherits, or "is of",[13][14][15][16][17] 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 the metonymy "church" or "rite". Accordingly, "Rite" has been defined as "a division of the Christian Church using a distinctive liturgy",[18] or simply as "a Christian Church".[19] 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".[20] 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"[21] and spoke of patriarchs and of "major archbishops, who rule the whole of some individual Church or Rite".[22] It thus used the word "Rite" as "a technical designation of what may now be called a particular Church".[23] "Church or rite" is also used as a single heading in the United States Library of Congress classification of works.[24]
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Historically, the governing entity of the Latin Church (i.e. the Holy See) has been viewed as one of the five patriarchates of the Pentarchy of early Christianity, along with the patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Due to geographic and cultural considerations, the latter patriarchates developed into churches with distinct Eastern Christian traditions. This scheme, tacitly at least accepted by Rome, is constructed from the viewpoint of Greek Christianity and does not take into consideration other churches of great antiquity which developed in the East outside the frontiers of the Roman Empire. The majority of Eastern Christian Churches broke full communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Latin Church, following various theological and jurisdictional disputes in the centuries following the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. These included notably the Nestorian Schism (431–544) (Church of the East), Chalcedonian Schism (451) (Oriental Orthodoxy), and the East-West Schism (1054) (Eastern Orthodoxy).[25] The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century saw a schism which was not analogous since it was not based upon the same historical factors and involved far more profound theological dissent from the teaching of the totality of previously existing historical Christian churches. Until 2005, the pope claimed the title "patriarch of the West"; Benedict XVI set aside this title.
Following the Islamic conquests, the Crusades were launched by the West from 1095 to 1291 in order to defend Christians and their properties in the Holy Land against persecution. In the long term the Crusaders did not succeed in re-establishing political and military control of Palestine, which like former Christian North Africa and the rest of the Middle East remained under Islamic domination. The names of many former Christian dioceses of this vast area are still used by the Catholic Church as the names of Catholic titular sees, irrespective of the question of liturgical families.
In the Catholic Church, in addition to the Latin Church—directly headed by the pope as Latin patriarch and notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments— there are 23 Eastern Catholic Churches, self-governing particular churches sui iuris with their own hierarchies. Most of these churches trace their origins to the other four patriarchates of the ancient pentarchy, but either never historically broke full communion or returned to it with the Papacy at some time. These differ from each other in liturgical rite (ceremonies, vestments, chants, language), devotional traditions, theology, canon law, and clergy, but all maintain the same faith, and all see full communion with the pope as bishop of Rome as essential to being Catholic as well as part of the one true church as defined by the Four Marks of the Church in Catholic ecclesiology.
The approximately 18 million Eastern Catholics represent a minority of Christians in communion with the pope,[3] compared to well over 1 billion Latin Catholics. Additionally, there are roughly 250 million Eastern Orthodox and 86 million Oriental Orthodox around the world that are not in union with Rome. Unlike the Latin Church, the pope does not exercise a direct patriarchal role over the Eastern Catholic churches and their faithful, instead encouraging their internal hierarchies, which while separate from that of the Latin Church and function analogously to it, and follow the traditions shared with the corresponding Eastern Christian churches in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy.[25]
Liturgical patrimony
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) described the Latin liturgical rites on 24 October 1998:[26]
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 the post-Vatican II Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969 and revised by Pope John Paul II in 2002 (the "Ordinary Form"), or the 1962 form of the Tridentine Mass (the "Extraordinary Form"); the Ambrosian Rite; the Mozarabic Rite; and variations of the Roman Rite (such as the Anglican Use). The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches employ five different families of liturgical rites. The Latin liturgical rites are used only in a single sui iuris particular church.
Of other liturgical families, the main survivors are what is now referred to officially as the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite, still in restricted use in Spain; the Ambrosian Rite, centred geographically on the Archdiocese of Milan, in Italy, and much closer in form, though not specific content, to the Roman Rite; and the Carthusian Rite, practised within the strict Carthusian monastic Order, which also employs in general terms forms similar to the Roman Rite, but with a number of significant divergences which have adapted it to the distinctive way of life of the Carthusians.
There once existed what is referred to as the Gallican Rite, used in Gaulish or Frankish territories. This was a conglomeration of varying forms, not unlike the present Hispano-Mozarabic Rite in its general structures, but never strictly codified and which from at least the seventh century was gradually infiltrated, and then eventually for the most part replaced, by liturgical texts and forms which had their origin in the diocese of Rome. Other former "Rites" in past times practised in certain religious orders and important cities were in truth usually partial variants upon the Roman Rite and have almost entirely disappeared from current use, despite limited nostalgic efforts at revival of some of them and a certain indulgence by the Roman authorities.
Disciplinary patrimony
Canon law for the Latin Church is codified in the Code of Canon Law, of which there have been two codifications, the first promulgated by Pope Benedict XV in 1917 and the second by Pope John Paul II in 1983.[27]
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",[28] 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."[29] In the Eastern Churches these sacraments are usually administered immediately after baptism, even for an infant.[30]
Celibacy, as a consequence of the duty to observe perfect continence, is obligatory for priests in the Latin Church.[31] An exception is made for married clergy from other churches, who join the Catholic Church; they may continue as married priests.[32] 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.[33] Marriage after ordination is not possible, and attempting it can result in canonical penalties.[34] The Eastern Catholic Churches, unlike the Latin Church, have a married clergy.
At the present time, Bishops in the Latin Church are generally appointed by the pope after hearing the advice of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia, specifically the Congregation for Bishops, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (for countries in its care), the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State (for appointments that require the consent or prior notification of civil governments), and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches (in the areas in its charge, even for the appointment of Latin bishops). The Congregations generally work from a "terna" or list of three names advanced to them by the local church, most often through the Apostolic Nuncio or the Cathedral Chapter in those places where the Chapter retains the right to nominate bishops.[citation needed]