Well, no, they’re nouns.
And what does official Catholic teaching say about the supposed meaning or implication of terms like “Your Grace” or “Your Excellency”? Are archbishops considered to be “exceptionally pure or holy”?
Kiss my ring and we’re even. 
I don’t know that they explicitly comment on the implication. My understanding is that excellency, eminence, grace and so on were borrowed from pre-existing nobility structures so that the lady of the 1800s house knows where to sit a visiting church official at the table.
What a kerfuffle developed on the board while I was away. That’s why I love you guys. When two or more are gathered, a kerfuffle is there in the midst of them.
Okay. Event over. I’m home now. It went great. As the Archbishop walked through the front door, I happened to be standing there and he stuck out his hand and said, “Hello, I’m Archbishop Bob.” He is a lovely, modest, humble fellow (and thank goodness that demeanor is back in fashion in the Catholic hierarchy. Kudos to Pope Francis.)
Good turnout, good speeches, Archbishop did a bang-up job, gave a short and heartfelt homily, sprinkled holy water, blessed the snot out of everyone, fabulous food at the reception afterwards, tours of the building, a TV station even came-- a rip-roaring success in my Little Teeny-Tiny Corner of the World. Yay.
Now it’s nap time.
Yes, this.
I never assumed he would be *offended *if someone didn’t use the strictly formal “Your Grace” or whatever. It’s just that I figured (correctly) that someone was likely to ask me what the correct form of address was.
BTW, he hugged everyone and hugged AND kissed lots of the women.* He’s from Latin America and very warm and gracious.
*I don’t believe there was any tongue involved.
Curing of the sick! Miracles are back in fashion, too!
(Wish I was there, I could use some of the snot blessed out of me right now, I tell you…)
So it’s a kerfuffle of Dopers?
I can live with that.
When my brother-in-law was ordained as bishop, the Papal Nuncio was there for the occasion, and I also did not know how to address him. I am Lutheran and do not call priests “Father” on principle (Matthew 23:9). So I just said “how do you do, sir” when we were introduced, and I did not have occasion to speak to him again. Mostly because he was a plump little Italian guy, very warm and engaging, and he made it his business to charm the socks off my mother-in-law, who was 93 at the time and floating on air the entire weekend. This was a Very Big Deal to my mother-in-law, as much as for my brother-in-law. She was speaking to the representative of the representative of God on Earth, and he was laying it on thick, talking about the Pope’s mother at his ordination, and my MIL was eating it up like fudge. She kept saying “I feel like the Blessed Virgin Mary”.
I now refer to my brother-in-law as His Excellency, the Most Reverend. My mother-in-law just called him the Bish.
Regards,
Shodan
I will not look up “kissing the ring” on Urban Dictionary…
Here is what I got from Emily Post:
See, now that’s the one that bothers me. How do I know he’s the most reverend? Is he really more reverend than everybody else? Did they hold a formal competition?
Nope. They’re nouns of address.
Oh yes. Lower in the hierarchy you’ve got your Notably Reverends, your Quite Reverends, your Almost Reverends, your Very Nearly Reverends… generally the Honestly Not Much Reverends get sent to do missionary work away from the cameras.
I ran into a bishop a while back at a fundraiser. I didn’t have to worry about forms of address, though, because it turned out we went to high school together, so I just called him “Jack.”*
*Not his real name, to protect those who would rather not be known to be acquainted with me.
If you check the list I fetched from the Emily Post site, you’ll notice that one of the generally accepted addresses for a Roman Catholic bishop is, in fact, Bishop.
Here is the Wiki’s article about the phrase Peace be upon him. It’s an honorific for dead used by Muslims. So, it shouldn’t be an issue for a non-Muslim to omit the term. Honorifics for the dead are not exclusively a Muslim thing, though. See the Wiki page on Honorifics for the dead in Judaism, for example.
My brother is a pastor and has an ongoing gag with a member of his church.
“Hello Vicar”
“Hello parishioner”
Has no application to the OP at hand, but makes me smile at the convolutions of titles and forms of address. By literal defination my brother is not a vicar but it is a term that sounds fun and is used informal and friendly.
I’m not catholic and through my buisness I deal with a few Catholic priests regularly. I’m an athiest that finds religion silly but I automatically refer to them as Father Bob, or Father John just as I automatically refer to people of a certain age as Mr. or Mrs. As a Yank I can’t ever imagine being introduced to Queen Elizabeth but I’d certainly refer to her as Your Highness. What’s wrong with polite conventions and good manners?
No. In emirates, like Kuwait, the Emir is addressed “His Highness,” but his children, assuming they have no other title, are properly addressed “His (or Her) Excellency.”
Foreign Ambassadors are also properly addressed as His/Her Excellency.
Could it be that your resistance to this is grounded in the fact that there’s – gasp – religion involved?
If so, you should not object to “Excellency,” but rather to “Most Reverend,” which is the full ecclesiastical title of a bishop: “His Most Reverend Excellency, the Bishop of Podunk.”
yo bish.
He’s the Most Reverend only when compared to a priest, who is merely Reverend, or a Monsignor, who is Right Reverend.
(Actually, it’s now “The Reverend Monsignor,” but that ruins the gag.)
He’s a little late. The traditional date for blessing the snot out of people is the feast of St. Blaise, February 3.
Similarly…the church associated with the community garden that I volunteer at has a pastor. I have absolutely no idea what the parishioners call him, but I call him Jim.
Yeah…not very relevant.