The Latin Church is the largest particular church within the Catholic Church. It is a particular church not on the level of the local particular churches known as dioceses or eparchies, but on the level of autonomous ritual churches, of which there are 23, the remaining 22 of which are Eastern Catholic Churches.
The Latin Church developed in the Western Roman Empire (Western Europe and North Africa) where, from classical antiquity to the Renaissance, Latin was the principal language of education and culture. The various Latin liturgical rites that developed in that area also use or have used that language.
Famous quotes containing the words latin and/or church:
“You send your child to the schoolmaster, but ‘tis the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the Latin class, but much of his tuition comes, on his way to school, from the shop- windows.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Baseball is the religion that worships the obvious and gives thanks that things are exactly as they seem. Instead of celebrating mysteries, baseball rejoices in the absence of mysteries and trusts that, if we watch what is laid before our eyes, down to the last detail, we will cultivate the gift of seeing things as they really are.”
—Thomas Boswell, U.S. sports journalist. “The Church of Baseball,” Baseball: An Illustrated History, ed. Geoffrey C. Ward, Knopf (1994)