who was a subdeacon in the Orthodox Western Rite, and who had at least a bit of influence in the Western Rite here in the states. He has gone back to the Roman Catholic Church of his youth, and is a novice at a Benedictine monastery overseas. I had asked him:
Do you think the Western Rite has a secured place in the Orthodox Church, or do you foresee eventual assimilation into the Eastern Rite?
His answer came tonight:
Frankly, I don't believe that WRO has much of a future at all. There is simply no common vision. I do foresee eventual ER assimilation, or mass defections to Rome or traditional Anglicanism (the latter, admittedly, has the advantage of a non-exceptional married clergy).
My feeling is that Orthodox ought to be Byzantine, Romans ought to be Roman, Anglicans ought to be Anglican. Uniate projects (and yes, I include here Greek Catholicism and Anglican Use Roman Catholicism) never seem to work out; they always produce a sort of bastardized "tertium quid".
There are no data on the future, of course, but I happen to share his opinon. We may be wrong, but if I had to lay money on the prediction, I'd bet the days of the Western Rite are numbered. As I've argued, potential converts to Orthodoxy hoping to remain "Western" will very likely be frustrated in that goal if they go WR.