I mean, I get how it would feel weird if you’re not used to it, but pretty much any honorific can strike one as weird if interpreted literally. Would you feel equally uncomfortable about calling a nun “Sister”, for example? She’s not your biological/familial sister any more than a priest is your biological/familial father.
The standard male honorific “Mister” is just a derivative of “Master”, a word that comes with a lot of baggage of its own; same for “Mrs.” as a contraction of “Mistress”.
(Why you would be comfortable calling a religious dignitary “Reverend”, literally implying that he’s someone to be revered, but not comfortable calling one “Your Excellency” with the lesser implication that he’s merely excellent, is just another example of the irrationality of this sort of reflexive squeamishness provoked by taking formal honorifics literally.)
Yes, I would feel equally uncomfortable calling a nun “sister”.
Reverend, or Mister, whatever the etymology, are simply titles. Father or Your Highness or My Lord imply a level of buy-in to the concept that this priest or noble is truly holy or truly has authority over me or is truly a better, more worthy person because of their noble blood.
The non-ordained monks go by "Brother- but I think an ordained monk most likely goes by “Father” just as the head of a convent of female religious is usually called “Mother” rather than “Sister”
They’re all “simply titles”. You don’t have to mean the title “Father” or “Sister” or “my Lord” any more literally than you mean “Reverend” or “Mister”.
I get that the former titles feel more literally significant to you than the latter, because you’re not as familiar with using them as routine honorifics, but objectively they’re all just routine honorifics. There’s nothing about formal use of any of them that actually implies any “buy-in” to any literal interpretation of their meaning.
Formal official honorifics are not like, say, esoteric cult epithets, where the devotees of the Dear Leader call him “Your Most Supreme Reverence” and everybody else just calls him “the defendant”. The formal use of official honorifics like “Father” does not in any way commit the user to any kind of “buy-in” to any belief in any special or exalted nature of the person so addressed.
That said, of course you still don’t have to use such honorifics if they make you feel uncomfortable for any reason. But you do have to accept the consequences if your refusal to use the standard official honorific for someone comes across as rude.
I’m just the opposite. I get mildly annoyed when a Bible-thumper or an African-American ostentatiously calls me “my brother”, but if someone told my I should call a bishop “your Grace”, I would feel more amusement than oppression. (I would probably lay the formalities on so thick, it would make him uncomfortable.)
Nitpick, as long as this is FQ: As a non-subject of the Queen of England you would not be required to bow, curtsy, “kowtow”, or in any way physically abase yourself before her if you should happen to meet her.
It would still be correct for you to address her by her official formal honorific “Your Majesty” upon first replying to her in conversation. But if you really couldn’t manage to choke out that phrase, it would be equally correct for you to jump directly to her other official formal honorific “Ma’am” (which AFAICT British English speakers mostly seem to pronounce “Mom”, so cope with that as best you can, I guess).
If you meet the Pope, as a non-Catholic you can simply shake his hand if he extends it (Catholics might choose to kiss his ring). It’s customary to wait for him to address you, so you could probably get away with not using any honorific or title of address at all.
Formal meetings with dignitaries nowadays are not really intended to operate like official sacrifices in ancient Roman provincial temples, where the participants’ display of religious deference was required as a symbol of political subjugation. Neither the British government, the Catholic hierarchy, nor anyone else is really invested in trying to trick or pressure outsiders into affirming that Elizabeth II is actually majestic or Pope Francis is actually holy when they don’t really think so.
It’s all just formal honorifics, and refusing to use them is more along the lines of devout conservative Muslim men refusing to shake hands with women—i.e., “this means something more inappropriately intimate to me than it means to you so I would rather not do it”—than, say, non-believers refusing to take Communion or participate in other rituals that really do indicate “buy-in” to a particular belief system.
For me, personally, the other honorifics aren’t as uncomfortable probably because there is no implied biological relationship. For me. Others will feel differently.
First of all, since I don’t have contact with dukes or any other form of titled nobility that has simply never come up in my life. It’s pretty unlikely it ever would.
But while I don’t have a “grace” or an “excellency” in my life, I do have sisters, a father, a mother… Those are titles reserved (in my brain) for very specific individuals and are not comfortably transferable to someone else.
Ah, OK - so why should their custom overrule my custom?
I don’t recognize the authority of any Christian over my religious beliefs. Probably just as well I don’t have to deal with Catholic clergy much in my life, either. I’ve got a few nuns and a monk that are customers in my store, but they don’t seem upset if I address them as “sir” or “ma’am” on the rare occasion I need to call them anything at all. Nor have they ever used the condescending “my child” on me, either, which annoys me no end.
I am not in the Military, but I will call a captain a captain, I am not a police officer, but I will address a cop as Officer or Sergeant or whatever. I am hardly a medical professional, but I will call a MD “Doctor”.
These are titles they have earned.
That is fine, and maybe better.
I kissed the Popes ring and got a blessing, it was the polite thing to do, and I can certainly use all the help I can get. (Not the Catholic Pope, of course)
Mostly because it’s easier and more convenient for there to be one recognized standard system of official forms of address than for everybody to expect everybody else to understand their individual “customs”.
For low-stakes issues like “which courtesy title should I use for this person in a brief interaction between strangers”, it generally doesn’t matter all that much.
In monastic orders, a “brother” is not the same thing as a “father”. Not all monks are priests. As an example from my high school (which was run by a monastery), “Brother Ted” and “Father Bede” were both on the faculty; Bede was a priest but Ted wasn’t.
And my experience of what non-Catholics call priests may well not be representative, since there are limited contexts where I’ve seen non-Catholics and priests together (and, for instance, at my old high school, the students would call the teachers what they were “supposed to” because there was an expectation to do so as students).
Oh, and you probably don’t have to worry about insulting the current Pope by getting the titles wrong: He doesn’t have a reputation for being caught up in formalities.
Why should their religious custom override MY custom? It is disrespectful to the relationships I have with my family members to be forced to use those “titles” on someone who is not actually a parent or sibling.
I’m not asking for them to memorize a hundred other titles. I’m asking them to accept the same title I use for any other unrelated adult I encounter.
Actually, for the actual clergy I have interacted with they seem to get that - I’m sure the average clergyperson in the US encounters people outside their religion all the time. I’ve occasionally been criticized by Catholics who aren’t clergy, but again, that seldom comes up in my life.
Like it or not, the use of standard honorifics like “Father” and “Sister” (or “My Lord” or “Colonel” or “Doctor”, for that matter) is now part of the rules of general social etiquette. They are no longer specific to the religious, or aristocratic, or military, or academic/medical, environments in which they originated.
You don’t have to personally like or approve of any particular standard honorific for clergymembers, but it’s naively inaccurate to try to compartmentalize its use as a purely “religious custom”.
Well, I guess anybody can have their own individual opinions on the perceived “disrespectfulness” of any standard honorifics. I’ve met people who were indignant about MDs being expected to be addressed as “Doctor”, too.
Sorry, I don’t buy it - it still feels like someone imposing their religion on me. Likely because it’s only standard for Catholic clergy, not all clergy of all religions.
This level of resistance/defiance/ WRT to the use of customary titles truly blows my mind. I can’t begin to wrap my brain around it. So I don’t think I will try.
Sorry. Apparently we move in very different circles.
And while no one is physically forcing me telling me I should just suck it up because its tradition is not a satisfactory answer to me. Plenty of traditions have been changed in the past 50 years, or 100 years. Why should this one be any different?
I believe you that that’s how it feels to you, for whatever reason(s). I’m just saying that in terms of general social etiquette, the use of such standard honorifics is not considered a specifically “religious custom”.
Sure, it’s certainly possible that the general etiquette rule of using these standard honorifics for Catholic clergy will change at some point.
Several other non-protestant non-catholic faiths also use it. And I would call a Minister “Reverend” or whatever title that faith picks.
I use Rabbi or sometimes “Reb” (if I know him well), there is imam, caliph, qadi, mufti, mullah, muezzin, or ayatollah ,Bhante or more likely brother, Pujari, etc.
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