WHO ARE WE? First of all, we are Christian folk from different Churches and from all over the world who have come together because we have all made the same discovery about Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church.

WHY HAVE YOU LEFT YOUR FORMER CHURCHES? Keep in mind that we are people from Africa, and America, as well as Britain - different lands, different languages. All of us have felt it necessary to re-discover the full meaning of the Faith and the Church. This was something we could not do until we had broken the ties linking us with our previous Church communities - but not all those ties.

WHY NOT ALL TIES? Because all Churches have the potential to get back to the fullness of the Faith and the true nature of the Church. For that reason we find that all Churches have something to offer, but also that they hold to things which are a hindrance. We had to be free to rediscover our true identity - hence our title.

YOU CALL YOURSELVES ‘HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH - WESTERN RITE'. WHY? The first part of the title 'The Holy Catholic Church' indicates our basic identity, the second part 'Western Rite' shows that we don't consider ourselves as the only Catholic Church. The Christian Churches started out as the one authentic Catholic Church, problems and divisions came later.

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH? We are not talking about the Roman Catholic Church which is a later and limited version of the authentic Catholic Church. We are concerned with the basic identity of the Catholic Church.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY CATHOLIC? The word CATHOLIC means complete or whole. The word is hardly used at all in the Bible but the idea is present in it as fullness. A famous leader of the second generation of Christians, St. Ignatius of Antioch, was the first to apply the word CATHOLIC to the Church. In a letter to the Christians of Smyrna, Ignatius wrote ..... wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. (ie. the whole Church)

WHO IS WITHIN AND WHO IS OUTSIDE THIS CATHOLIC CHURCH? Put another way, St. Ignatius is saying that Jesus Christ is Himself the True Boundary of the Church. Just as Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so the Church is Catholic (whole) when it lives fully within that True Boundary. St. Ignatius was sure that to live within that Boundary there must be continuity with the fellowship and teaching of the Apostles (some of whom he may have met when he was a boy). This continuity means holding the same Faith and living within the same Sacramental Body as the Apostles. It is these two continuities which mark out who is within or outside the Catholic Church.

WHAT IS THIS SACRAMENTAL BODY? From the outside the Church looks like a religious organisation. From the inside it is a sharing of the risen Life of Christ - this is what the Bible calls the Body of Christ. So it is not just a matter of joining a club of the like-minded, but of being made one with Jesus. This is where the Sacraments come in - outward actions and words which convey the Life of Christ to us by the Holy Spirit. The Sacrament of Baptism is the point at which we start our new Life in the Body of Christ and this life is constantly renewed in the Sacrament of the Eucharist (or Mass).

IF THE CHURCH IS ONE, WHY ARE THE CHURCHES DIVIDED? Over two thousand years the Body of Christ, the Church, has been attacked at various times by false teaching. Such teaching creates a false boundary. To those we call the Fathers of the Church fell the task, guided by the Holy Spirit, of making clear, once and again, the True Boundary of the Church. A fence built outside the True Boundary of the Church is entirely false - a heresy. From time to time, however, fences have been either erected inside the True Boundary, dividing one group of believers from another, or built partly outside, giving a false understanding of the nature of the Catholic Church.

BUT SURELY THE FENCES ARE THERE TO PROTECT THE FAITH? This is what many people think, but such fences enclose only part of the Faith, not its fullness. Only a return to the True Boundary will do the job. Many Churches are now suffering from the way their particular fences have been extended outside the True Boundary, allowing secularism to enter and destroy the Faith.

SO DO WE HAVE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN? No, this is not necessary. All Churches began as manifestations of the one true Catholic Church, the Body of Christ. All retain, to a lesser or greater degree, elements of their original identity, elements which can be used to restore that Catholic unity. The HCC-WR, for example continues to use and value the tradition of worship inherited from the Church in Western Europe.

BUT IS THE HCC-WR A TRUE CHURCH OR JUST A SECT? By ensuring that it maintains the two vital continuities - holding the same Faith and living within the same Sacramental Body as the Apostles - the HCC-WR is an authentic manifestation of the Catholic Church. It lives within the True Boundary of the Body of Christ. It is the creation of fences which turn Churches into sects.

IF THE HCC-WR USES ANGLICAN STYLE WORSHIP, WHY DOES IT NOT USE THE NAME ANGLICAN? This is partly to avoid a confusion of names and identity, partly because many of our members world-wide have never been Anglicans, partly because our worship is not exactly the same, and partly because Anglicanism views the Faith and the Church in a different way.

CAN WE EVER KNOW WHAT IS TRULY CATHOLIC? For the first thousand years of its earthly existence the Catholic Church remained a unity. There were quarrels, divisions and mistakes, but all knew it was necessary to hold the same Faith and live within the same Sacramental Body as the Apostles. The record of this history is extensive but, once these basic principles are pointed out, it is quite easy to discern the underlying pattern. So the HCC-WR exists to bear witness to this vital truth and bears witness to it through being itself a manifestation of the authentic Catholic Church, the Body of Christ.