The Courage to Be Ourselves is a Christmas 1970 pastoral letter of Melkite Catholic Archbishop Joseph Tawil of the Eparchy of Newton.
The address defines the raison d'être for the existence of diasporate Eastern Catholic Churches and their traditions.
Archbishop Tawil used the letter to lay out four major points on the current state and future direction of the Melkite Church in America.
Therefore, ... all Eastern rite members should know that they can and should always preserve their lawful liturgical rites and their established way of life ... and should honor all these things with greatest fidelity.Indeed, the Roman Church, as the Council affirmed, has learned many lessons of late from the East in the fields of liturgy (use of the vernacular, Communion in both kinds, baptism by immersion), of Church order (collegiality, synodal government, the role of the deacon), and spirituality.
However, he urged that the faithful resist the temptation is to slip into anonymity through assimilation and to hold fast to their religious patrimony.The pastoral letter served as a catalyst for profound changes in the Melkite Church in the United States, and for other Eastern Catholic eparchies located in the West.