What is the Celtic Rite?
Most people view the Catholic Church as this great monolithic institution, and are completely unaware that different Rites exist within the Catholic Church. For instance, in the east, thereare Byzantine Rite Catholics. Members of theByzantine Church have a different liturgy and different disciplinary rules than do Roman Catholics,but they are still very much Catholic.One of the reasons we remain so ignorant of other Rites is that in the western part of the Church, the Latin Rite, also called the Roman Rite, long ago became dominant, to the point of eliminating other Rites. Catholics in the West are all Roman Rite Catholics, and so people in the West tend to equate all Catholics with Roman Catholics. But this simply is not the case now, nor was it the case historically in the West.
In the West, there also was once a plurality of Rites in the Church (though never as much as in the East), and one of the other Rites was the Celtic Rite. There seems to have actually been at times a number of different Rites practiced in Great Britain, Ireland, Brittany, and other Celtic places that later historians would classify together under the term "Celtic Rite." But what we do know, from their own documents and liturgies that survive, is that this Celtic Church was simply another Rite of the western Catholic Church and not in any way, shape, or form a separate and competing version of Christianity. We share many liturgical and spiritual practices in common with the Church of Rome. We differ in that we do not recognize the primacy or infallibility on the part of any one Bishop, including the Pope. We do not have a mandatory celibacy for those in Holy Orders except single Clergy. All Clergy may marry and we ordain women (conhospitae) following the ancient Celtic Church's practices and Traditions as understood by the Council of Bishops.
How does the Roman Church
view The Celtic Rite? .+
Dominus Iesus
At the Vatican on 16 June 2000, Pope John Paul II ratified and ordered the publication of Dominus Iesus. This Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was signed and published by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) in August of the same year.
In this Declaration, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the validity of Orders and Sacraments of other Catholic communities of faith:
"The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the [Roman] Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches."
"Therefore, these separated Churches and communities as such ... have by no means been deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church." IV. Unicity and Unity of the Church, 17
These are "true particular Churches." The Church of Christ is "present and operative" in these churches even though they do not, at this time, accept the primacy of the pope.
The remaining Christian denominations which have not preserved the Apostolic succession. They are not "churches in the proper sense." However, their members are "incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion with the Church."
Beannachd Dia dhuit
(Blessings of God be with you in Scottish)