Dominican Rite  The Dominican Rite is the unique rite of the Dominican Order of the Roman Catholic Church. It has been classified differently by different sources – some consider it a usage of the Roman Rite, others a variant of the Gallican Rite, and still others a form of the Roman Rite into which Gallican elements were inserted. The Dominican Order composed and adopted this rite in the mid-thirteenth century as its specific rite. In 1968, it decided to adopt the revised Roman Rite of Mass and of the Divine Office, as soon as the texts revised after the Second Vatican Council appeared, but it has kept other elements of its proper rite, such as the Rite of Profession. As a result, the Dominican Rite of the Mass ceased being celebrated as often after the revised Roman Rite was promulgated. However, in recent decades it has been offered occasionally in some provinces of the Dominican Order, and regularly in others. In addition, it is offered by the Traditionalist Roman Catholic Dominican Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer. The question of a special unified rite for the order received no official attention in the time of St. Dominic, each province sharing in the general liturgical diversities prevalent throughout the Church at the order's confirmation in 1216. Hence, each province and often each convent had certain peculiarities in the text and in the ceremonies of the Mass and the recitation of the Divine Office. The successors of St. Dominic were quick to recognize the impracticability of such conditions, and soon busied themselves in an effort to eliminate the distinctions. They maintained that the safety of a basic principle of community life—unity of prayer and worship—was endangered by this conformity with different local diocesan conditions. This belief was impressed upon them more forcibly by the confusion that these liturgical diversities occasioned at the general chapters of the order, where brothers from every province were assembled. The first indication of an effort to regulate liturgical conditions was manifested by Jordan of Saxony, the successor of St. Dominic. In the Constitutions of 1228 ascribed to him are found several rubrics for the recitation of the Divine Office. These insist more on the attention with which the Liturgy should be said than on the qualifications of the liturgical books. However, it is said that Jordan took some steps in the latter direction and compiled one Office for universal use. Though this is doubtful, it is certain that his efforts were of little practical value, for the Chapters of Bologna (1240) and Paris (1241) allowed each convent to conform with the local rites.