We Dopers loves our pet kerfuffles. But when you get several of them in the same room, they have this habit of proliferating. This was horrifyingly well-documented in that old Star Trek episode, The Trouble With Kerfuffles.
Didn’t you Americans used to call them ‘Padre?’
Highly formal: “Your Grace”
Highly informal: [Diminutive of his Christian name]
Somewhere round about the mid point between the above: “Archbishop”
Except “Excellency” is commonly used for certain positions that have nothing to do with a church. For instance, the Governor General of Canada is formally referred to as “Your Excellency,” as are ambassadors. It tends to be a general term used in international communications; I recently saw a copy of a letter from an international organization addressed to a Canadian cabinet minister, which used the term, “Excellency.”
Using it for a Roman Catholic Archbishop seems to be simply an example of the use of a general term for a high-ranking official.
Username/post alert.
You know I’ve only seen that in movies. I think MASH* does it a lot. No idea where/why that started. Missionaries in SW USA, maybe.
I believe it’s a borrowing from the usage in the British Army, where “padre” is a common term for a military chaplain. See: Royal Army Chaplains’ Department