Folia Canonica 5. (2002)
STUDIES - John D. Faris: Territory and the Eastern Catholic Experience in the United States
TERRITORY AND THE EASTERN CATHOLIC EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES 57 ment, all Latin Catholics who do not choose to belong to the Polish, Slovak, or Italian parishes are de iure entrusted to the pastoral care of the Irish parish. There are also two parishes established in consideration of membership in a church sui iuris, a Maronite parish and a Ruthenian parish. With regard to the Maronite and Ruthenian faithful residing in Uniontown, they are de iure entrusted to the pastoral care of their respective pastors.24 These Eastern Catholics do not have a choice regarding parish membership and could only become affiliated with another parish through transfer of enrollment to another church sui iuris. The existence of six parishes assigned to three different bishops in a small town poses certain challenges. A major point of contention is the Catholic school system. Two parishes (the local Latin parish, St. John the Evangelist, and the Ruthenian parish) have their own schools. Each of the schools has a tuition fee for parishioners and a tuition fee for non-parishioners. The Polish, Slovak and Italian pastors complain that in order for the children of their parishioners to avail themselves of a Catholic education, they must abandon their ethnic bonds and support the Irish parish; the same parishioners could send their children to the Ruthenian parish school, but would be obliged to pay the non-parishioner (higher) tuition. The Maronite faithful cannot avoid paying the non-parishioner tuition fees since canon law does not permit them to be members of any other parish. Although the application of the factor of territoriality is intended to clarify pastoral responsibilities and relationships, such is not always the case because it is not always easy to establish parish boundaries. To use again the example of the Maronite Church, there is one Maronite parish in the City of New York with its seven million people and in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with its population of 47,523, there are two Maronite parishes a few blocks from each other. What are the boundaries of these two parishes? Defacto, for most of the Eastern Catholic jurisdictions, one cannot depend on territorial boundaries, but must resort to parish enrollment. Such a matter of parish boundaries might seem to be legalistic and tedious, but it does have canonical ramifications. In the case of marriage, to be married by a priest who is not the proper pastor can result in an invalid marriage.25 Today, territorial boundaries also fail in another respect. In the past, a person who lived in a certain area naturally participated in the parish life of that locale. This is no longer the case. In the United States—especially in the metropolitan areas—it is not rare that a person live in one diocese, travel to a train station and park his car in another diocese, and work in still another diocese. A pious person 24 CCEO Can. 916 - §1. Through both domicile and quasi-domicile, each person acquires his or her own local hierarch and pastor of the Church sui iuris to which he or she is ascribed, unless common law provides otherwise. §2. The proper pastor of one who has only an eparchial domicile or quasi-domicile is the pastor of the place where the person is actually residing. 25 CCEO c. 829 / 83C/C c. 1109.
