What is the Holy Catholic Church -Western Rite?
 

Simply put, the Holy Catholic Church - Western Rite is a manifestation of the One, True Church founded by Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Her members hold and teach the Faith delivered to the Apostles.
The same Faith that united the whole Church throughout the world before the great Schism that occurred in the 11th century.
‘Western Rite’ refers to those ancient forms for celebrating the 7 Sacraments used throughout Western Christendom and still used by the Holy Catholic Church in Her work of maintaining and proclaiming the Faith of the undivided Church in the lands of the Western hemisphere.
 

Where is the Faith of the undivided Church to be found?
 

We hold that the Faith of the undivided Church has been maintained by the various Eastern Orthodox churches throughout the world. That Faith, the Church’s Faith, is the norm of Faith to be accepted and believed by anyone who seeks to be Catholic.
The Holy Catholic Church - Western Rite holds and teaches the Faith of the undivided Church while remaining faithful to Western theology and liturgy. We are a Western expression of the Orthodox Catholic Faith.

The National character of Orthodoxy.
 

Although the various Orthodox churches hold the Faith of the undivided Church, Eastern Orthodox liturgy and theology bear the cultural hallmarks of those nations which influenced their development. So much so, that the noun ‘Orthodox’ is almost always prefaced by an adjective indicating a national origin and character: Greek, Russian, Antiochian, Coptic, etc.
Despite the fact that the Patriarch of the West (the Pope) and those who accepted his claims were in schism, no attempt was ever made to establish a Western Rite Orthodox Church.
For a time the Anglican church claimed that it represented a Western form of Catholicism. However, its attempts to be all-inclusive and its gradual abandonment of Holy Tradition have rendered its claims to be ‘Catholic’ and ‘Apostolic’ meaningless.
This created a vacuum which is only now being filled by. the Holy Catholic Church - Western Rite.
 

Orthodoxy in the West.
 

For Christians in the West, it has been a problem if one wishes to belong to the One, True Church. Where does a person in the West find the True Church, undivided and undefiled?
Up until recently, if a person in the West wanted to hold the Faith of the undivided Church, they were left with little option but to join whichever one of the Eastern Orthodox churches was present in their part of the country.
For many Western Christians this was a most unsatisfactory arrangement. One can find people born and bred in the United Kingdom, from Anglo Saxon or Celtic roots who are now members of the Greek, Russian, Coptic, or Antiochian Orthodox churches, having had to learn the customs of those national groups in order to practice their faith. Also, more recently, former Anglicans who have sought a home in Orthodoxy have made efforts to ‘construct’ a Western Rite that is acceptable to Eastern Orthodox and Anglican liturgical sensibilities. This so called Western Rite is nothing but an amalgam of Anglican liturgy and prayers from the Orthodox liturgies tacked on to the Roman Mass.
In charity and good conscience, we are bound to say that this attempt at forming an artificial Western Rite does no justice to Orthodoxy or to Western Christendom.
Western Christendom has Her own rich heritage of liturgy and spirituality, totally Catholic, uniquely Western.            The Church in the West does not need to borrow the Eucharistic liturgies of the East, or have well- meaning but ultimately misguided former Anglicans re-frame the Mass according to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
 

The Holy Catholic Church - Western Rite: Ever Ancient, Ever New.
 

The Holy Catholic Church - Western Rite seeks to restore the Faith of the undivided Church to the nations in which She labours.
Her members have come together from various church backgrounds to be the Western Orthodox Church restored to the one Faith of the one Catholic Church of Christ.
The Holy Catholic Church is deeply rooted in the theological tradition of the West, and She uses the ancient Roman Mass (long abandoned by Roman Catholics), which is esteemed by both by East and West alike.
The Holy Catholic Church possesses the four marks of the true Church: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity and Apostolicity.
Unity: the Holy Catholic Church is ‘One’ with Church Christ founded because she holds and proclaims the Faith of the undivided Church. That is, the Faith proclaimed by the entire Church prior to the schism between East and West. She rejects Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant efforts to add to or subtract from the Faith of the Undivided Church.
Holiness: the Holy Catholic Church is made ‘Holy’ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; She possesses valid Sacraments and her members are sanctified by receiving those Sacraments and cooperating with the grace received therein.
Catholicity: the Holy Catholic Church is ‘Catholic’ because she is part of Christ’s Mystical Body, His universal Church, which is found in each in every land.
Apostolic: the Holy Catholic Church is ‘Apostolic’ because She has received Her Faith and three fold ministry of Bishops, priests and deacons directly from the Apostles through an unbroken succession of the laying on of hands.
 

True Church, Authentic Christianity.
 

Christianity is unique in that its founder, Jesus Christ, claimed to be God.
As God made man, He has redeemed all mankind from sin and death through His own death on the Cross and His resurrection.
Christ invites all men and women to believe in Himself and to become partakers of His Divine life, through baptism into His Mystical Body, the Church.                                                                                                                                                    Incomplete forms of Christianity abound in our modern world. Each and every one of them making claims as to why people should join them and believe what they say.
There is only one Church that can claim to have been founded by Christ.
We invite you to join that Church, manifest in the Holy Catholic Church - Western Rite.
We invite you to share fully in Christ’s certain truth and in the New Life which by His death on the Cross and His resurrection from the dead, is freely offered to YOU!

The foregoing written by our priest, Father William Campbell, sums up entirely what we are about.

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