www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Other Sacramental Mysteries Guide to Eastern Catholics receiving the Eucharist at Roman Mass

This guide to the canons and practicalities concerning Eastern Catholics receiving the Eucharist in a Roman Catholic Mass was put together with the input of Eastern and Roman Catholic canon lawyers, liturgists, clergy, religious, and faithful. It will assist many in greater appreciation and participation in the universal nature of the Church.

It is primarily intended to be a teaching document for Roman Catholic seminaries and formation houses. It is secondarily designed to be easily printed and carried with traveling Eastern Catholics. Offered under an “Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives” Creative Commons license, others may freely download and share the pamphlet as long as the author/publisher is attributed, it isn’t used commercially or for profit, and isn’t changed in any way. Using 2-sided printing, it fits on a single 8.5″ x 11″ paper.

With that explanation, the pamphlet was presented to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas with a request for a nihil obstat and imprimatur. Bishop Farrell decided that neither was needed in order to promote the work, saying it simply quoted and presented canon law. There was a presumption that every priest already knows this and no further authority is necessary for stating the obvious. We encourage you to share it far and wide online and in person so that reality may come to pass!

Questions answered include:

• What should Eastern Catholics do when visiting a Roman Catholic Mass?
• Is the Eastern Catholic held to western rules when in the Latin Church?
• What happens when the norms contradict each other?
• Does it contradict the Latin rite’s liturgical norms to commune an infant?
• Is a person who is under the age of reason properly disposed to receive?
• May the priest apply prudential judgment if he thinks the visitor is significantly lacking in knowledge or understanding of the Eucharist?
• What if the congregation might be scandalized by a child receiving?
• What makes an Eastern Catholic properly disposed to receive?
• How can the Eucharist be administered to an infant or toddler?

The pamphlet is the first major work of The Star of the East, a canonically established public association of the faithful, headquartered at St. Sophia UGCC in The Colony, TX. The Star of the East has a primary mission of disseminating reliable and orthodox material from appropriate and competent authorities to Eastern Catholic clerical, religious, and lay leaders on the topics of evangelism, catechesis, and missiology.

We want every Catholic to have free access to this meticulously accurate, easily comprehensible guide and we put in all the work to make that a reality. All that needs to happen now is to have it shared! We hope you'll help with that.

You can direct others to the St. Sophia website [stsophiaukrainian.cc] to see more about it, or to download [stsophiaukrainian.cc] and share the fantastic resource.

Well, that bites. What if I am scandalized by Latin teenagers receiving in my parish even though they have not yet been Chrismated?

Oh, never mind.

Then you should lobby their bishop to restore the order of the sacraments of initiation.

Might I ask why a document with its origins in a UGCC parish was presented for approval to a Latin Ordinary, rather than to Vladyka Richard, Eparch of St Nicholas in Chicago of the Ukrainians, who has canonical jurisdiction of the parish?

With all due respect to Bishop Farrell, without the permission of the Eparch, the Bishop cannot even wear the trappings of his office upon entry onto the property of St Sophia. He certainly is not empowered to afford canonical approbation to the published works of the parish or its associations.

Many years,

Neil

I think if the document is going to be circulated in the Latin parishes for the education of Latin Catholics, then the nihil obstat and imprimatur needs to come from that bishop. If it is circulated in the UGCC Bishop Richard Steven would be the one granting the nihil obstat and imprimatur.

Then again who even looks for that any more? I had a devil of a time trying to explain why a nihil obstat and imprimatur was necessary, when I taught religious ed in a Latin Parish and the text book the parents wanted did not have a nihil obstat and imprimatur.

Sigh. Despite all these years years and that has happened, it seems to this Orthodox with a Greek Catholic ancestry that many Latin Rite Bishops are as ignorant or or even "hostile" towards their Church's official teachings.

"Scandalize" ? Sigh....

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

For a community supposedly not bowing to Political Correctness is bowing to it, sheepishly.

Not intending to sound snarky, but the last time I looked, the nihil obstat and imprimatur were not particular to any Church sui iuris. Rather the nihil obstat evinces to the full Catholic Communion that the censor librorum has declared that nothing contained in the text is harmful to faith or morals and, thus, nothing stands in the way of its publication.

The imprimatur, likewise, informs the Catholic community that its publication was authorized by a Catholic hierarch and it is customarily granted by the ordinary who has canonical jurisdiction of the author or the ordinary of the place of its publication. While one could argue that the latter justifies its submission to the Latin Ordinary of Dallas, that it is being published by faithful of a canonical entity which merely is geographically sited in the same civil locale, but stands canonically apart from the Latin jurisdiction, argues persuasively that it is not his place to issue that declaration.

Lester's point is well-made. We have a long-standing decided habit of donning Latin trappings to prove our Catholicity. This is another instance of same and really no different than doing so by adopting devotions, etc - just a tad more subtle.

Many years,

Neil

Hey that's my line!

Of course there's that disclaimer that the guide would be in reverse for those who are Latin who attend Divine Liturgy in any of the Eastern Lung Churches.

Oh I've been there back in the early to mid '90s. In fact, I served for a Byzantine Church and received prior to Confirmation, so trust me...I don't see why that should be any trouble.

Why wouldn't we trust you? If you say you don't see it, then I believe you.

After consulting the Ukrainian and Roman chanceries, both said it was more appropriate for the Roman Catholic bishop because it was telling Roman Catholic priests what they should do in a Roman Catholic Mass according to Roman Catholic canon law.

It is intended as a teaching document for Roman Catholic seminaries. One Ukrainian Catholic (not in the chancery) summed it up to me by saying if a Roman Catholic showed up on the door with a paper signed by another Roman Catholic saying what we should do, we'd say we listen to our bishop and do things our way and the paper wouldn't change that. Expecting the same from the other side, it was decided that it was more appropriate for Roman Catholic priests to know this was their own law and for the presentation of that law to be vetted and signed off by their own bishop.

While it has modest circulation in Eastern Catholic circles, it hasn't gained traction in western circles yet. Please send it to your local seminary to help change that!

Interesting point.