This article is not on general rudeness but on the assertion that
“Consider, for example, a Catholic priest. Normally, one addresses a priest as “Father” and the Pope as “Your Holiness,” and one does this whether or not one is Catholic.”
For various values of “one”, as the t-shirt meme goes.
For the non-Christians and non-Westerns out there, Matthew 23:9 in the Christian Bible is translated (normally translated, pick your favorite translation) “And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
Catholics call their “first level line manager” “Father”, Protestants go with “Pastor”, “Reverend”, etc. Many Bible-focused (hundreds of millions) Protestants thus have a theological problem with calling anyone “Father”, especially a capitalized Father. (The precise role of Jesus and the Bible varies between various Christian denominations, so they disagree about things like this.)
There are various polite ways around the disagreement. No Catholic priest that I know will have a problem with being addressed “Pastor” or “Reverend” since they understand the underlying issue. Priests have bigger problems with sexual harassment claims and declining attendance (as do Protestant pastors BTW) than to quibble about honorifics.
The cleverest way I’ve seen to handle this is from the very popular American sitcom MASH, about a medical unit in the Korean War. The CO, Protestant Col. Sherman Potter, commands a chaplain who happens to be a Catholic priest (who ministers to Catholics and Protestants alike). If he is old-line Protestant, Sherman probably would have a problem referring to the chaplain as “Father”, for theological and command reasons. So he commonly refers to Father Mulcahy as “Padre”, Spanish for “Father”. This positive, folksy word both shows respect for the chaplain’s particular denomination while not directly using the English word “Father”. (It’s why he made Colonel…)
The original Greek word for “father” here is πατήρ anyway. You’re on your own for the Aramaic, abbas(?).
The Pope has never been a problem that I know of as “His Holiness”. The simple finesse is that is his official title as political head of the political State of Vatican City, so you can always use that like you would call the reigning monarch of the UK, King Charles. Unless you know Charles Philip Arthur George and his consort personally, then Fred and Gladys might work.
It’s polite to acknowledge, and not wave away, other people’s theological beliefs and also polite to accommodate those beliefs in a way that honors your own beliefs. There’s always a way to do that in polite speech and actions, and you get Brownie points in Western cultures when you do that. But not referring to a Catholic priest as the English word “Father” isn’t rude if you find a respectful linguistic finesse. Silence, too, is also always golden.
This isn’t AI, BTW. And a Mormon is a Mormon, and the Church is LDS, dammit (grin).
[edit for King Charles III full name and represent MASH without asterisks]
This article is not on general rudeness but on the assertion that
“Consider, for example, a Catholic priest. Normally, one addresses a priest as “Father” and the Pope as “Your Holiness,” and one does this whether or not one is Catholic.”
For various values of “one”, as the t-shirt meme goes.
For the non-Christians and non-Westerns out there, Matthew 23:9 in the Christian Bible is translated (normally translated, pick your favorite translation) “And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
Catholics call their “first level line manager” “Father”, Protestants go with “Pastor”, “Reverend”, etc. Many Bible-focused (hundreds of millions) Protestants thus have a theological problem with calling anyone “Father”, especially a capitalized Father. (The precise role of Jesus and the Bible varies between various Christian denominations, so they disagree about things like this.)
There are various polite ways around the disagreement. No Catholic priest that I know will have a problem with being addressed “Pastor” or “Reverend” since they understand the underlying issue. Priests have bigger problems with sexual harassment claims and declining attendance (as do Protestant pastors BTW) than to quibble about honorifics.
The cleverest way I’ve seen to handle this is from the very popular American sitcom MASH, about a medical unit in the Korean War. The CO, Protestant Col. Sherman Potter, commands a chaplain who happens to be a Catholic priest (who ministers to Catholics and Protestants alike). If he is old-line Protestant, Sherman probably would have a problem referring to the chaplain as “Father”, for theological and command reasons. So he commonly refers to Father Mulcahy as “Padre”, Spanish for “Father”. This positive, folksy word both shows respect for the chaplain’s particular denomination while not directly using the English word “Father”. (It’s why he made Colonel…)
The original Greek word for “father” here is πατήρ anyway. You’re on your own for the Aramaic, abbas(?).
The Pope has never been a problem that I know of as “His Holiness”. The simple finesse is that is his official title as political head of the political State of Vatican City, so you can always use that like you would call the reigning monarch of the UK, King Charles. Unless you know Charles Philip Arthur George and his consort personally, then Fred and Gladys might work.
It’s polite to acknowledge, and not wave away, other people’s theological beliefs and also polite to accommodate those beliefs in a way that honors your own beliefs. There’s always a way to do that in polite speech and actions, and you get Brownie points in Western cultures when you do that. But not referring to a Catholic priest as the English word “Father” isn’t rude if you find a respectful linguistic finesse. Silence, too, is also always golden.
This isn’t AI, BTW. And a Mormon is a Mormon, and the Church is LDS, dammit (grin).
[edit for King Charles III full name and represent MASH without asterisks]