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Christ is Risen!
Hope all of you had a nice Pascha!

A question for the Canon Lawyers amongst you.
Can a Nuncio deny a petition to change rite?
Does he have that power? If so, how does this jive with remarks of various popes ,of blessed memories, about freedom of religion and respecting religious beliefs?



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Why is he even involved? If you are changing from one jurisdiction to another with overlapping boundaries the only people involved are you, the bishop you are currently under, and the bishop you wish to go under.


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Why would a bishop deny change of rites if he did?

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I don't know why he is involve. To tell you the truth, my RC Chancellor said to us that she would send this directly to the Eastern Congregation but it ended up at the Nuncio's desk....go figure why....

My receiving bishop( UGC Eparch) is so shy, he felt he could not make a decision about a simple change of church sui iuris....hence the need to send the files to Rome.
It does not make any sense to me.

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They all seem misinformed about current policy. Write a letter requesting change of sui iuris church, one to the Ukrainian bishop, another to the Latin bishop and that should be it.


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Well, here in Indonesia, everyone seems to get involved. The Patriarchate, Congregation for Oriental Churches, the nuncio, every one except the Latin bishop.

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David, Deacon Lance has it right, but beware the caveat, which he expressed as "overlapping boundaries".

In Indonesia, there is no extant Eastern Catholic Church, to my knowledge. That being the case, a request from a Latin-rite Catholic to move East gets passed to Rome.

Surprisingly it doesn't take long. I'm sure your grandchildren will be very glad to receive a letter from the Vatican! :p

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Well, we're expecting the letter to come at the very end of this month when a priest from the Australian Eparchy comes to celebrate the liturgy.
I am surprised at the speed of things, actually. Oh well, Damascus apparently pushed it quite hard. But thanks to the Theotokos, Rome decided to throw this to Canberra(nuncio), who in turn throws it to Greenacre(Melkite Chancery), and it got stuck. Only after some ridiculous move on our part (read:sending me over to Sydney for this purpose, and for the Melkite mission here in general) things have been going on what I can only describe as lightning speed by Church terms... Once again, all this we (the Indonesian group) attribute on the Theotokos, and her son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Btw, we did make a suggestion to the bishop to simply claim the title "of Asia Pacific".
FYI, the development here in Indonesia is very interesting, and exciting indeed...

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Fr. Deacon,
This works everywhere except in Canada.

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A bishop might be reluctant to get involved in "rite changes" for some good reasons.

He may wish to make sure the petitioner is motivated by desires originating for valid spiritual reasons, and that he/she have thought it through completely. Also that the petitioner is not rushing into it (the priest making the recommendation for the transfer would probably not encourage it anyway if that were the case).

As mentioned in the biography of Kyr Andrei Sheptytsky ("Morality and Reality") sometimes these transfers don't always work out well because the petitioner has regarded the Eastern Church in question through rose-coloured glasses and sentimentally idealized it. It's kinda tough and demanding to be an Eastern Catholic. Tough in ways it's not for Latin Catholics.

A less good reason could be that he may simply be a micro-managing control freak...oops, I forgot: we don't have any bishops like that. My bad.

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Xpucmoc Bockpec

My cousin a RC changed rites to Ukrainian Greek Catholic very simply.

In his request he stated that he wished to follow the rite of his mother with which he was most familiar even though he was baptized in the rite of his father ( RC ).

He also stated that should the Lord call him to religious life, he would prefer to serve in the Greek Catholic tradition. In addition, he also stated that should he have his children, if he were to marry, that they be raised in the tradition of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

There was no problem! It was simply done in with the assistance of the Ukrainian Priest of his mother's church.

When he was born at a time in the 1940's, his parents were told that he must follow the rite of his father and that his mother had to leave the church of her Baptism and
Chrismation and become a Roman Catholic!

Needles to say, his mother's family felt that this made them feel like foreigners in the Catholic church they thought accepted them as true and equal Catholics of different but equal tradition. As my cousin used to say, " They are all Catholic but some are more Catholic!!!!!!!!!" this makes me think of the novel " Animal Farm".

Christ is Risen

Kolya

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Francois, I have helped with several in the last couple of years, and the local bishops (UGCC and Latin Archbishop) handled everything between them. None were denied.

According to the Eastern Code, 32.2, "In the case of Christian faithful of an eparchy of a certain Church sui iuris who petition to transfer to another Church sui iuris which has its own eparchy in the same territory, this consent of the Apostolic See is presumed, provided that the eparchial bishops of both eparchies consent to the transfer in writing."

Unless you are bound by some kind of canonical reason (religious vows, etc.) to the Latin Church there is no valid reason to deny a transfer.

On the Eastern side, a transfer for laity is clearly the canonical responsibility of the Eparchial bishop and no one else. With priests it may be more complicated (vows to a religious order, etc.) but it is very straightforward for laity.


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Diak,
We've explored all the avenues that you are talking about. My case is easy. Yet, the Eparch does not want to sign the paperwork. It was supposed to go directly to the Congregation of Eastern Churches in Rome. Someone at the chancery had the bright idea to forward this to the Nuncio. Of course, he denied it, directing my Chancellor to close and lock down the file.
Do you see what I mean? It has been over 2 years of discussion, thank God I'm not a priest, they would have probably put me in prison by now...or worse.
Apparently it is impossible if you are not genetically ukrainian to get a transfer.
Meanwhile in free countries around the globe, thousands of people are changing church sui iuris.
There is something fundamentally wrong in the racial approach to a rite in the Church. But this is my own personal opinion, maybe it is in fact the very basis of what a rite is all about.

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I would appeal to Rome. There wasnt really a clear decision given, just the nuncio sending it back basically. I doubt if you appealed to Rome it would get denied, more likely they would approve it at a lower level before it got that far.

The whole point of the paper work of changing Rites had to do with people leaving the Eastern Rite to go Western for the sake of convienience. This was because the Eastern Bishops worried they would be totally assimilated. It makes no sense there is a problem going the other way.

You could always say you would consider Orthodoxy whether you mean it or not. Maybe they will be more attentive to your pleas.

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Francois, appeal to the Metropolitan in Winnipeg first. +Lawrence has likely handled many of these in the past, whether in Edmonton or in Winnipeg, and you may get faster action than dealing with any Latin dicastery. A copy of the letter of your UGCC pastor recommending the change should also be included, and greatly strenghtens the request.

The choice is entirely yours to make, and there is no good reason to deny a transfer.

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