Biritual priests seen as witnesses to the Catholic Church’s ‘great unity’ in liturgical diversity

“Many Catholics don’t necessarily know about the great unity in diversity that the Catholic Church is an expression of,” Father Eugene Ritz, the chancellor of the Latin Diocese of Allentown, Pa., told OSV News.

The Catholic Church is made up of two dozen “Catholic churches,” each belonging to seven ritual families — Alexandrian, Armenian, Byzantine, Chaldean, Latin, Maronite and Syriac — and each church in that ritual family having its own distinctive traditions and liturgical variations.

Father Ritz serves as the co-postulator for the canonization cause of Jesuit Father Walter Ciszek (1904-1984), an American priest of the Latin Catholic Church, who was ordained in the Byzantine rite of the Russian Greek Catholic Church and had biritual faculties to celebrate the Divine Liturgy (called the Mass in the Latin Church) as a missionary to the Soviet Union from 1939-1963.

The Latin Catholic Church, the Russian Greek Catholic Church and 22 other Eastern Catholic churches — each self-governing with their own hierarchy, liturgical rites and traditions while being in communion with each other through Pope Francis, who heads the Latin Church as bishop of Rome — all make up the global Catholic Church. Thanks to their shared communion, Catholics in each of these different churches can all share in the Eucharist together — a unity on display July 20 at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis where more than 25,000 Catholics joined in the Holy Qurbana, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church’s form of celebrating the Eucharist, and received holy Communion.

Many Catholic priests — just like the late Father Ciszek — also have biritual faculties, allowing them to celebrate the liturgies proper to a different ritual church within the Catholic communion than the one they are part of. These priests act as witnesses to the “unity in legitimate diversity” that St. John Paul II discussed in his 1995 papal encyclical “Ut Unum Sint.”

According to Father Ritz, Father Ciszek’s formation and ministry were strongly influenced by the “deep patrimony” of the Eastern Catholic churches. The son of Polish immigrants, Father Ciszek grew up in Pennsylvania, where Catholics worship in the Latin Church’s Roman rite the future missionary grew up in, as well as the Byzantine rite shared by several Eastern Catholic churches. After joining the Jesuits in 1928, he responded to Pope Pius XI’s call for missionary priests to minister in Russia and learned the Byzantine rite of the Russian Greek Catholic Church.

“His very willingness in the discernment of his vocation to be ordained in service to one of the other Catholic churches so that he could undertake what could be considered dangerous missionary work beautifully expresses the universality of Catholicism,” Father Ritz said.

While serving a sentence in a Siberian gulag, Father Ciszek celebrated the Divine Liturgy in secret in the forest with other Catholics until 1963 when the U.S. government secured his release back to the U.S.

Father Henry Finch encourages priests who are considering a request for biritual faculties to avoid “treating another spiritual tradition, liturgical tradition as a museum piece,” he told OSV News. “It’s something that needs to be embraced in a way that it becomes a part of the priest’s own spirituality.”

A Latin Catholic who came into full communion to the Catholic Church from evangelical Baptist Christianity, Father Finch first encountered the Byzantine tradition of Catholicism by visiting St. Basil the Great Byzantine Catholic Parish in Irving, Texas, while attending nearby Holy Trinity Seminary.

Several years later, while serving at St. Peter’s Catholic Student Center for Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the local community of Byzantine Catholics connected with Father Finch, who concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with their pastor, Father Elias Rafaj, whenever he could.

After receiving biritual faculties, Father Finch celebrated his first Divine Liturgy May 12, 2024. That day, the Gospel reading included John 17:21: “That they may all be one,” the verse that inspired St. John Paul II’s encyclical “Ut Unum Sint.”

“I thought it was fitting,” Father Finch said.

Father Peter Davids also learned to celebrate the Divine Liturgy from Father Rafaj. “Actually,” he told OSV News, “every liturgy I’ve learned, I have learned by watching others” and reading the liturgical books. In addition to the Divine Liturgy, Father Davids can celebrate the ordinary Roman Mass and Divine Worship, a form of the Mass in traditional English for the Latin Church’s personal ordinariates for the Anglican tradition.

Father Davids grew up and married in the Plymouth Brethren Church; eventually he joined the Anglican Communion and became a priest for the Episcopal Church.

Through ecumenical connections, Father Davids and his wife encountered Catholicism. While living in Houston, they were received into the Catholic Church. Soon after, Father Davids was ordained a deacon and then a priest for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, one of three personal ordinariates for the Anglican tradition established under Pope Benedict XVI.

While visiting a nearby Byzantine Catholic parish, St. John Chrysostom, Father Davids was invited to concelebrate the Divine Liturgy. Surprised at the invitation, Father Davids agreed.

“‘Here’s the book,'” Father Davids recounted Father Rafaj, the community’s pastor at the time, telling him. “‘Follow along and I’ll gesture to you what to do.'”

Soon after, Father Rafaj asked if Father Davids would like biritual faculties to celebrate the Divine Liturgy on his own. In response to Father Davids’ “Yes,” Father Rafaj sought permission on his behalf from the Byzantine Catholic metropolitan archbishop of Pittsburgh.

A few months later, Father Davids began celebrating the Divine Liturgy at St. John Chrysostom.

Since then, Father Davids has retired and moved with his wife in 2019 to Georgetown, Texas, to serve as chaplain to the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist there.

For now, Father Davids still celebrates the “typical Roman Mass” for the Dominicans — something an ordinariate priest has faculties to do — and is a regular supply priest as needed for Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, a recently established community of Catholics who celebrate the ordinariate’s Divine Worship Mass in west Austin, much closer to Georgetown.

Not all biritual priests come from Western traditions. Father Dennis Smith was raised Greek Orthodox in Fort Worth, Texas, before coming into full communion with the Catholic Church as a young adult.

Feeling called to the priesthood, he studied at Holy Trinity Seminary. However — he eventually discovered a major snag: he was Catholic, just not canonically part of the Latin Church.

“Shortly before I was to be ordained to the diaconate, I was called into the rector’s office and informed that I could not be ordained,” he wrote to OSV News via email.

Why?

“Because I was not Roman Catholic,” he said, using a common term for Catholics in the Latin Church. “According to canon law (at that time, and I believe even to this day) when one converts from Orthodoxy to the Catholic Church, they are automatically a Greek Catholic (nowadays more often referred to as a Byzantine or Eastern rite Catholic) rather than a Roman Catholic.”

That was the first time Father Smith had heard of the Eastern Catholic churches.

After receiving a dispensation to be ordained in the Latin Church’s Roman rite, Father Smith served the Latin Diocese of Fort Worth. Eventually, he learned about the local St. Basil the Great Byzantine Catholic Parish, contacted their priest and requested biritual faculties.

For years, until health challenges became too much, Father Smith served at St. Basil’s as a substitute and interim priest — and as a bridge between local Catholics of different ritual churches.

“During my times at St. Basil’s,” he said, “many parishioners from my Roman parish came to worship and witness the majestic beauty of the Divine Liturgy.”

Peter Jesserer Smith, national news and features editor for OSV News, contributed to this report.

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