Coptic. Maronite. Byzantine. Latin. The Catholic Church is far bigger, and far more ancient in its variety, than most Catholics ever learn — here's a guide to Her many rites, and where the Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo fit within that larger picture.
A question that surprises many Catholic families the first time they hear it: is the pope only the head of the "Roman Catholic Church," or something bigger than that? The honest answer is bigger. The Catholic Church is made up of 24 autonomous particular Churches, all in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, all professing the same Catholic Faith and the same seven sacraments — and each carrying its own ancient liturgical tradition, its own language of worship, and often its own married clergy, calendar, and spiritual customs. These are called Churches sui iuris, a Latin phrase meaning "of its own right," and together their liturgies fall into six great rites.
Why "Roman," and Why "Latin"?
Before touring the rest of the Church, it's worth answering the question in your title directly: why do we call the largest of these traditions the "Roman Rite," and why "Latin"?
The answer is simply geography and history. This is the liturgical tradition that developed in the city of Rome itself — the see of St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome, and the seat of the pope. As that tradition spread outward through the Western half of the old Roman Empire — Italy, Gaul, Spain, and eventually all of Western and Northern Europe — it carried the Latin language with it, since Latin was the common tongue of the Roman West, in the same way Greek and Syriac were common in the East. Over time, "Roman Rite" came to describe the specific liturgy of the city of Rome, while "Latin Church" became the broader term for the whole Western tradition this rite anchors — which, in addition to the Roman Rite itself, also includes a small number of other surviving local Western rites, like the Ambrosian Rite still used in Milan.
So: Roman names where it came from. Latin names the broader Western family it belongs to, and the language it has always been prayed in. The vast majority of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics belong to the Latin Church, and within it, nearly all of them worship according to the Roman Rite — today celebrated in two forms.
The Two Forms of the Roman Rite
- The Traditional Latin Mass (also called the Tridentine Mass, or the Extraordinary Form) — the Roman Rite as codified in 1570 following the Council of Trent, refined through subsequent editions up to 1962, prayed entirely in Latin with the priest facing the altar alongside the people.
- The Novus Ordo (the "New Order," or Ordinary Form) — the Mass of Pope St. Paul VI, promulgated in 1969–1970 following the Second Vatican Council, typically prayed in the vernacular language of the local congregation.
Both are genuinely the Roman Rite — two forms of one same liturgical family, sharing the same Roman lineage even as their outward shape differs considerably.
The Other Five Rites of the Catholic Church
Beyond the Latin Church, the Catholic Church includes 23 Eastern Catholic Churches — communities that trace their liturgical roots to the ancient apostolic sees of the Christian East, and that have remained in, or returned to, full communion with Rome while keeping their own distinct rites entirely intact. Together they form five liturgical families:
The Byzantine Rite
The largest of the Eastern traditions, rooted in Constantinople, and shared by fourteen different sui iuris Churches — among them the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, and the Ruthenian Catholic Church. Its liturgy, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, is marked by rich chant, an iconostasis separating the sanctuary, and a liturgical calendar and style immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Eastern Orthodox worship — because this is the same liturgical family, simply in communion with Rome rather than separated from Her.
The Alexandrian Rite
Rooted in Egypt and the ancient see of Alexandria, prayed primarily in Coptic and Ge'ez. This family includes:
- The Coptic Catholic Church, serving Egyptian Catholics
- The Ethiopian Catholic Church
- The Eritrean Catholic Church
The Antiochene (West Syriac) Rite
Rooted in the ancient see of Antioch, prayed primarily in Syriac. This family includes:
- The Maronite Catholic Church — notable for having never separated from Rome at all across its entire history, unlike most Eastern Catholic Churches, which reunited with Rome after a period of separation
- The Syriac Catholic Church
- The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, serving Catholics in the Malankara tradition of India
The Chaldean (East Syriac) Rite
Also called the East Syrian or Assyrian Rite, distinct from the West Syriac family above, using its own dialect and the ancient Divine Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari. This family includes:
- The Chaldean Catholic Church, rooted in Iraq and the broader Mesopotamian tradition
- The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, one of the largest Eastern Catholic Churches, serving Catholics along the Malabar Coast of India, tracing its origins to the evangelization of St. Thomas the Apostle
The Armenian Rite
A rite of its own, belonging to a single Church — the Armenian Catholic Church — carrying the distinct liturgical, musical, and spiritual heritage of Armenia, one of the very first nations to formally embrace Christianity.
One Faith, Many Voices of Worship
What ties all twenty-four of these Churches together is not uniform ceremony, but a shared Faith, a shared communion with the Successor of St. Peter, and the same sacraments, validly celebrated in each. The Second Vatican Council itself affirmed this plainly, declaring that the Church holds all Her lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity, and wishes to preserve and foster every one of them.
For a family devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass, there is something worth treasuring in seeing our own tradition within this larger picture: the TLM is not an isolated preference, but one thread — a very old and deeply rooted one — within a Church whose worship has always taken many forms, all of them offering the same Christ, all of them worthy of the reverence we bring to our own.
In the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, Cathy
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