This seems like a prime example of where a law that was intended to protect the minority ends up being interpreted in such a way as to "protect" the majority instead.

I don't think that there's much to argue about this. If you're a Protestant; especially one from a non-liturgical background, and you're going to receive the Mysteries of Initiation in an Eastern Catholic Church, you're an Eastern Catholic. 'Nuff said. I spoke to a few bishops and priests here in Australia, and this is what they said.

To put it simply, to receive free meals from house A and then choosing to live in house B instead is just selfish, let alone uncanonical. ;)Its just basic courtesy. With all due respect, why should the Latin Church take ownership of the converts?

Akira,

An excellent observation - though I'd probably narrow it to the past half-century (and that's generous).

Ray,

Nice find!

Many years,

Neil

I'm guessing that a lot of it has to do with the dismantling of the Roman liturgy and the Eastern churches maintaining a reverent liturgy. I'm a Roman convert from Protestantism and I doubt I would love the Divine Liturgy as much if I had ready access to a Roman Mass approximately as reverent and by the book.

WC,

VII certainly contributed to the Latin world and Westerners in general being more aware of us - simply because our existence suddenly became an open secret. As well, just as you suggest, the changes in the Latin Mass caused folks to look at us - for better and, sometimes, for worse. (You'll see references made to the misguided efforts of some who came to us to make us into Churches which served a Divine Liturgy that they could comfortably recognize as a variant on the historical Latin Mass - thankfully, those times are past.)

As to the Western Mass being served reverently and 'by the book' - (and I offer these comments in passing, I do NOT intend that this thread become a place to debate the Mass versus the Divine Liturgy) - I attended Mass in a Latin parish this past Sunday because I was in Pennsylvania (of all places) but nowhere near any Eastern temple.

(Yes, my brethren from the Holy Land, there are such places within the hallowed state confines - think Lancaster County . As a parishioner there, having apparently noticed the backwards Signs of the Cross made by me and my two little ones, observed to me in passing - "You're too far west, but not far enough West, to find the East, right?" )

Anyway, it was my first time at Mass in several years, other than a wedding or funeral. So what did I experience or see? A relatively modern church structure. a priest serving ad populam, altar girls serving, EMHCs, some people reciting the Lord's Prayer with hands raised in the orans position and some others doing so while holding hands, and one absolutely ghastly hymn that l suspect would have been roundly rejected both by most High Church Protestants and Evangelical Christians.

I'm very well aware of the tendency within a lot of the Latin community to decry all of those things - and to particularly denounce those which violate the holy and revered GIRM.

Now, I can't say that I'm a fan of any of what I've described, but (the referenced hymn, which had no redeeming qualities, aside) ... the most memorable things that I took away from St Philip the Apostle Church were a virtually full church, populated in its entirety by very reverent folk of all ages - including that priest, those altar girls, the EMHCs, and all who prayed the Lord's Prayer - regardless of whether they did so with their hands clasped or in one of the two positions described.

Those who criticize the Latin Church, its liturgical forms and praxis, etc, would do well to spend significantly less time on policing and documenting the 'abuses' so-called and giving the same degree of attentiveness to prayer and worship that these 'abusers' did.

Many years,

Neil