Ascription to a Church sui iuris

Ascription attaches a person to a Church sui iuris, the community of faithful joined by a hierarchy and recognized as self-governing under canon 27. It is not enrollment in an abstract rite: canon 28 calls a rite the liturgical, theological, spiritual, and disciplinary patrimony through which a Church lives the faith. Church and rite are related but not interchangeable classifications.^[2][3]

The bond has concrete canonical consequences for the person's proper pastor and Hierarch, sacramental discipline, formation, marriage law, holy days, and other matters governed by common and particular law. It also corresponds to the faithful's right to worship according to their own Church and their duty to preserve communion with both the Universal Church and their own Church sui iuris.

For a child below fourteen, canon 29 ordinarily follows the Catholic father's enrollment; if only the mother is Catholic, or both parents jointly request it, the child is enrolled in the mother's Church, with additional rules for an unmarried mother, unknown or adoptive parents, and non-baptized parents. These are rules of canonical membership, not judgments about the dignity of either parent's tradition.

A person who has completed fourteen years may freely choose a Church sui iuris and is enrolled in it by receiving baptism there, subject to particular law established by the Apostolic See. An Eastern non-Catholic entering full Catholic communion ordinarily retains the person's own rite and is enrolled in the corresponding Church sui iuris under canon 35, rather than being absorbed automatically into the Latin Church.

Residence, ancestry, attendance at another Catholic liturgy, or reception of sacraments from another Catholic minister does not by itself alter ascription. Canon 38 expressly says that Eastern faithful entrusted to the pastoral care of a Hierarch or pastor of another Church remain enrolled in their own Church sui iuris. Pastoral accommodation therefore does not silently become canonical transfer.

Canon 37 requires every ascription or later transfer to be recorded in the baptismal register and provides an archival alternative when notation there is impossible. Domicile and quasi-domicile then operate together with ascription to identify the proper Hierarch and pastor under canon 916. The record evidences an ecclesial bond; it does not create a second baptism or reduce Church membership to ethnicity.^[4]