understand very well that rite is not of the essence of religion. They tolerate no variety in the Faith, since there can be only one true revelation from God. But in the matter of rite they know that different customs suit different people; they know that God will judge men according to the lives they lead, not according to the rites they use.
So, not only does the Catholic Church allow diversities of rites; as a matter of fact, she is the only religious body that does so. In contemplating the absurd quarrels there have been among Eastern schismatics on the question of rite, in seeing the preposterous way they always seem to think the form of prayers used in a service, even the language in which these prayers are said, to be a vital matter of the Christian faith, in noticing the arrogant tyranny with which Eastern Patriarchs put down any other rite than their own in their spheres of authority, their ridiculous jealousy of foreign rites, in seeing all this, we are always impressed by the different attitude of the Holy See. Rome's calm tolerance, her dignified breadth of outlook in this matter are most significant. She knows how to distinguish between faith and rite; autocratic where she has Christ's commission to teach his faith without ambiguity, she is too secure in her own inapproachable dignity to be jealous if a group of her children prefer to say their prayers in Syriac, or to celebrate the holy mysteries with other ceremonies than hers. It is only the Protestant of the more ignorant kind who can commit so amazing a blunder as to represent the Pope as demanding uniformity of rite.[1] He is the only Head of a Church who does not do so.[2]
So Rite is not the same thing as Religion. These Eastern Catholics agree in rite with their schismatical cousins; on the other hand, they differ in this from us Latins. Yet in religion, in Faith, and all the essential ideas of Catholicity, they are absolutely one with us, and differ vitally from the schismatics. The situation is curious. A simple Catholic Armenian layman is in union with any Latin priest. He has the same faith, is a member of the same Church. He has no communion with an Armenian schismatic. Yet if he came into a Latin Church to hear Mass, he would understand little or nothing of what was
- ↑ E.g., Mr. P. Dearmer, "Rome and Reunion" (2nd edition, Mowbray, 1911), p. 37: "The Roman Church has rushed to her decline ... by enforcing uniformity in her borders with an iron hand."
- ↑ The only other case that could be quoted is a partial toleration now of some of the "Old-Believer" rites within the Russian State Church.
