Additional Points

33. Now it is true that in the city of Balsera, Armenian and Syrian Catholics of the Oriental rite who have no church of their own assemble at the church of the Latin missionaries. Their priests celebrate Mass and other ceremonies there according to their own rite in the presence of the laity, who also receive the Sacraments. Still, it is not difficult to uphold the decision that "no changes should be made"; therefore the prevailing practice should continue, that is, that the priests and laity should continue celebrating in the Latin church the rites they have celebrated until now.

Canon Law decrees that the Oriental and Greek rite should not be mixed with the Latin rite. See the entire Decretal of Celestine III in Gonzales, chap. Cum secundum: de temporibus Ordinationum; in the decretal of Innocent III, see chap. Quanto: de consuetudine; chap. Quoniam: de Officio Judic. Ordinar.; and the Decretal of Honorius III, chap. Literas: de celebrat. Missar. But there are no good grounds for declaring that this mixing of rite forbidden by Apostolic Constitution is being practiced in the simple case of an Armenian, Maronite, or Greek celebrating Mass or other ceremonies with their own laity according to their own rite in a Latin church. Nor are there grounds in the opposite case of a Latin doing likewise in an Oriental church, especially when there is a just cause for doing so. Clearly such a cause exists in the present case, since the Orientals in the city of Balsera have no church of their own. If they were deprived of the Latin church, they would have nowhere to offer the sacrifice of the Mass and perform the essential ceremonies with the laity of their rite which maintain and nourish them in holy unity.