#nicholas cusanus

I haven't really been to any Protestant services of a low church persuasion before, so I don't think I can competently comment on it. But in principle, I don't see why not.

In Allatae sunt, Pope Benedict XIV says that when groups of "schismatics" return to the Catholic Church, they should not be expected to give up their liturgical traditions. "[The Church's] great desire is [...] in short, that all may be Catholic rather than all become Latin." Now, this was written with the Orthodox Churches in mind. But I don't see why this would ipso facto mean that it couldn't also be applied to groups born of the Protestant Reformation.

Now, Anglican Ordinariate communities are technically Roman Rite Catholics, but their breviary and missal might bring something to the conversation, too. Namely, as their website says, Divine Worship: The Missal is a very unique Catholic liturgical text in that it "marks the first time the Catholic Church has sanctioned liturgical texts deriving from the Protestant Reformation." And if it's happened once, well, I don't see why it can't happen again. I would imagine that any explicitly anti-Catholic or overtly Calvinistic language would need to be expunged, and the Communion prayer would need to incorporate the Epiclesis and Words of Institution, at minimum.

Based off of these two principles, I don't think it's necessary impossible for what you're suggesting to come to pass. I think these rites would potentially look radically different from the current 24 rites of the Catholic Church, but as early as the 1450s, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa was making suggestions for incorporating religious traditions that would have looked radically different from the Catholic rites prominent in his own time.

1. Pope Francis celebrating the Zaire Use of the Roman Rite, the first Sunday of Advent, 2019. (x) 2. Clergy celebrating the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite in Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore. (x) 3. A priest celebrating the Holy Qurbana according to the Syro-Malabar Rite at Mundelein Seminary, December 2018. (x)

Everything that the Church has to offer must become incarnate in a distinctive way in each part of the world, so that the Bride of Christ can take on a variety of faces that better manifest the inexhaustible riches of God's grace. Preaching must become incarnate, spirituality must become incarnate, ecclesial structures must become incarnate.

- Pope Francis (Querida Amazonia, §6ab)

And the nations, despite a difference of development due to diverse conditions of life and culture, are not destined to break the unity of the human race, but rather to enrich and embellish it by the sharing of their own particular gifts and by that reciprocal interchange of goods which can be possible and efficacious only when a mutual love and lively sense of charity unite all the sons of the same Father and all those redeemed by the same Divine Blood.

- Pope Pius XII (Summi Pontificatus, §43)

Where conformity of mode cannot be had, nations are entitled to their own devotions and ceremonies, provided faith and peace be maintained. Perhaps as a result of a certain diversity devotion will even be increased, since each nation will endeavor with zeal and diligence to make its own rite more splendid […] if you will deign to do this, the sword will cease, as will also the malice of hatred and all evils; and all will know that there is only one religion in a variety of rites [Latin: una religio in varietate rituum]

First, we have the fact that the work is motivated by an abhorrence for religiously motivated violence. In the 15th century. Written by a Catholic cardinal.

Second, this work exemplifies the attitude that became mainstream in the Catholic Church after the publishing of Nostra aetate in 1965; namely, that while the Catholic Church contains the fullness of truth, other religions have degrees of truth within them and are earnest attempts to reach the Divine. Again, I can’t emphasize this enough, this was written in the middle of the 15th Century.

Third, this work recognizes the legitimacy of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is important, because this sets precedent for the idea that the one orthodox faith can be fully manifest in distinct and separate rites.

Related to the above, just as how Western and Eastern Christianity can reenter communion without giving up their distinctions in rites, Nicholas Cusanus is building towards an idea that certain groups of Hindus, Jews, and Muslims might in theory be able to enter communion with Rome while still holding onto their own religious rites, so long as they could come to accept Christian religious dogma (perhaps not even necessarily in the same ‘theological language’ as Catholics).

Spinoza identified wisdom with intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) of the universal in the particulars and regarded it as the way to live under the aspect of eternity. This may sound like Plato’s concept of wisdom [For Plato, sophia meant integrative knowledge of the totality of existence], but it is not. Spinoza was a staunch rationalist, and his interpretation of wisdom has a strong intellectual component. He argued that for wisdom to be wisdom, it had to be reasonable or intelligible. Spinoza’s position stands in diametrical opposition to the approach of Nicholas of Cues (Nicholas Cusanus) who, two centuries earlier, had equated wisdom with “learned ignorance” (docta ignorantia). By that he meant the ultimate admission that reason cannot penetrate the mystery of the Divine. The rational mind is endowed with the obvious capacity to appreciate its own finitude, while simultaneously being sensitive to the infinite Ground in which it inheres. Reason is demonstrably incapable of giving rational expression to the infinite. Therein lies our basic ignorance. However, as Nicholas of Cues further realized, the fact that we are aware of our cognitive incapacity elevates that ignorance to the status of learned ignorance. In his own words: “The relationship of our intellect to the truth is like that of a polygon to a circle; the resemblance to the circle grows with the multiplication of angles of the polygon; but apart from its being reduced to identity with the circle, no multiplication, even if it were infinite, of its angles will make the polygon equal the circle. “It is clear, therefore, that all we know of the truth is that the absolute truth, such as it is, is beyond our reach. The truth, which can be neither more nor less than it is, is the most absolute necessity, while, in contrast with it, our intellect is possibility. Therefore, the quiddity of things, which is ontological truth, is unattainable in its entirety; and though it has been the objective of all philosophers, by none has it been found as it really is. The more profoundly we learn this lesson of ignorance, the closer we draw to truth itself.” Learned ignorance corresponds to an attitude of humility and openness to the infinite. And that, according to Nicholas of Cues, is the essence of wisdom. In wisdom, the human being surpasses his or her constitution and merges with the infinite ground.