FALL RIVER DIOCESAN NEWSPAPER FOR SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS VOL. 43, NO. 28 • Friday, July 23, 1999
FALL RIVER, MASS.
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The Catholic Church: One Church with different 'rites' ~
Attimes ofbaptism and marriage, manyofthe faithful find outforthe first time that the laws ofthe Latin Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Church can be differentand sometimes contradictory.
But the faithful of the Eastern Catholic Churches are bound by the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1990. Those are particular to the individual Churches, formerly called rites, and to the regulations established by their own bishops." Msgr.Ferris said that there has always been mutual respect, appreciaBy JAMES N. DUNBAR tion and cooperation to show the true Catholicity of the one Church. "In FALL RIVER - It usually happens doctrine and morals the Eastern Rite when the couple comes through the and the Latin Rite are exactly the same. We are door seeking to get married, under the same says Msgr. pope, our Holy Norman J. Father John Ferris, pastor of Paul II. "At times it St. Anthony of the Desert can get funny, Church on because some North Eastern Catholics who Avenue. visit our church "It can be my see that there are rectory or any no kneelers and they leave immeother one here in the Fall River diately thinking Diocese for inthey are not in a stance, but Cat hoI i c Church," the when they come through the monsignor related. "In the door here, they are walking into Eastern Rite, at the Eastern the times during Cat hoI i c Mass when Church, and we MSGR. NORMAN J. FERRIS those in the Maronites follow a different set of sac- Latin Rite kneel, we stand." ramental norms," he said. "Many "If Catholics coming through the people don't know that the 1983 Code city stopped here to attend Mass and of Canon Law affects only the Latin receive Communion, they are truly in a Tum to page 13 - Eastem Church - as the first canon sets out.
New booklet explains' Eastern Catholic churches to Latins By JERRY FILTEAU CATliOUC NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON - For starters, those Eastern Catholic rites should be called Eastern Catholic churches. And the one universal Catholic Church is actually "a corporate body of churches." That's how the Second Vatican Council described it. It may come as a surprise to some Roman Catholics, who grew up hearing of the Ukrainian rite, Ruthenian rite, Maronite rite and more than a dozen other Catholic rites, to realize that each of these groups is truly a Catholic Church, not just a special branch of the Church of Rome. A new 38-page booklet, "Eastern Catholics in the United States of America," is intended to help Roman or Latin Catholics understand more
about those fellow Catholic churches which share the same faith, sacraments and government but have their own living liturgical, artistic, cultural and spiritual traditions. The booklet, sent out to all U.S. bishops in early July, was produced by the bishops' Committee on the Relationship Between Eastern and Latin Catholic Churches and published by the U.S. Catholic Conference. The booklet notes that before the new Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches was issued in 1990, it was customary to speak of the Eastern Catholic churches as "rites" - and, for that matter, to refer also to the Western, Latin or Roman Church as the Latin rite. . Tum to page 13 - Booklet
HAPPIER TIMES - President John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jacqueline, and their children, John Jr. and Caroline, on Easter Sunday in 1963. (CNS photo from Reuters)
Kennedy plan.e crash puts pall on Cape Cod's faith communities ~
Thousands turn to prayer as search continued for JFK Jr., his wife and her sister.
Bishop Sean P. O'Malley, OFM Cap., who offered a scheduled dedication Mass Sunday evening in St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis celebratingchurch renovations, told those attending that "for many, this is known as President Kennedy's By JAMES N. DUNBAR church." It was the church where the late President HYANNIS - Parishioners and visitors attend- John F. Kennedy and family - including his late ing Masses on Cape Cod last weekend prayed in son John and wife - attended when they were in the area, and which somber tones for John was the site for several F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Thepervasive emo~ional atmosphere Kennedy family wedCarolyn Bessette and sadness "all started on Saturday dings. Kennedy and her sister, In Quart, Italy, when and at that time, peopli3 we praying for a Lauren Bessette, even Pope John Paul II was as air and sea searches miracle,"FatherByington said. 'We have informed early Sunday continued off Martha's three shrines anqan aWful lot of people of the apparent crash, Vineyard for their misswere coming in. and lighting votive he interrupted the acing airplane. candles. But later, mostpeople began to count being given him The emotion surrealize that hope haC! diminished and to offer a prayer for the rounding the tragedy there was a change iritheir prayers that missing and their famicontinued into the ... God take the lost ones unto himself." lies. week, when, as The An''The Kennedy famchor went to press on ily continues to worWednesday, early news bulletins reported the finding of Kennedy's plane ship at our church and we have some of them here and his body in waters off Martha's Vineyard and every day," said St. Francis Xavier Church pastor plans by the U.S. Navy to lift the wreckage. It was Father Edward J. Byington in an Interview Monalso reported that the Kennedy family had re- day with The Anchor. He said the high altar and quested that a memorial service be held today in baldachino in St. Francis Xavier's were donated St. Thomas More Church on 89th Street in New by President Kennedy's late father and mother, AmYork City. It is the church in which John F. Kennedy bassador Joseph and Rose Kennedy, in 1946, in Jr.'s mother, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, worshipped honor of their son, Joseph Kennedy Jr., who died when the bomber he was piloting exploded durprior to her death on May 19, 1994. Tum to page 13 - Kennedy
Bishop O'Malley's statement - page 13