Expert: Fr. Michael - 7/4/2011

Question
Ave Maria!
There are different Catholic rite. There is no special rite for some of the Africans so they have to be Roman Catholics. The Latin Mass has been a part of the European culture but not a part of African culture. What should these Africans then do? Should celebrate an Africanised version of the Roman rite?
O maybe we should create a new rite for them?

Answer
The Roman Rite, and of course we are here speaking of the Traditional Roman Rite before 1950, is the universal and precedential rite of the true Catholic Church.  Nationalities are irrelevant.  That is one of the reasons why the invariable language of the Roman Rite is Latin, which, as Pope John XXIII pointed it, is the national language of no one.  Neither St. Peter nor St. Paul was a Roman, yet the Roman Rite is theirs.  Even Roman times Northern Africans were Roman, part of the Western Church and boasted such greats as St. Augustine of Hippo, Africa.

The notion of "creating a new rite" is anathema in the true Catholic Church.  This is a matter of Apostolic Tradition.  There are about five Catholic and Apostolic Rites:  the Roman Rite in the West and about four in the East.