# Technically speaking, is a cathedral a church? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644 "2017-05-15T13:05:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644/61 "2017-06-20T20:15:29Z")
I only discovered the last day that **[Monsignor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsignor)** is _not_ a rank, but a title of respect given to some deserving priests. And that his Holiness has stopped awarding it except to his diplomat priests, since he thinks it careerist. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644/62 "2017-06-21T04:22:09Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > I only discovered the last day that **[Monsignor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsignor)** is _not_ a rank, but a title of respect given to some deserving priests. > > And that his Holiness has stopped awarding it except to his diplomat priests, since he thinks it careerist. Yeah, literally “My Lord”. It’s one of many titles of respect or forms of address which have a feudal background. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644/63 "2017-06-21T05:40:43Z")
Nope, to be _literally_ “my lord” it would have to have a root in Latin _dominus_. In fact it has its root in Latin _senior_, older. It started out as a title of respect pr deference accorded to people based on their age/seniority and therefore there presumed wisdom/experience. It’s true that in the middle ages titles from the _senior_ root were employed in a feudal context, and you get titles like seigneur associated with particular feudal landholdings, and concepts like seigneurage (a kind of tax or duty). But that’s not the origin of the title, and I don’t know whether the church usage derives from the feudal usage or from the antecedent usage which refers to age or seniority. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644/64 "2017-06-21T05:52:42Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Nope, to be _literally_ “my lord” it would have to have a root in Latin _dominus_. In fact it has its root in Latin _senior_, older. It started out as a title of respect pr deference accorded to people based on their age/seniority and therefore there presumed wisdom/experience. It’s from French _mon seigneur_, which means “my lord”, indicating not just respect but personal allegiance; from French it passed to Italian and from Italian to other languages. The meaning changed between Latin and French (and Italian _signore_, and Spanish _señor_, and Catalan _senyor_, and Portugues _senhor_…). _Senior_ may have referred exclusively to an elder at some point, but by the time Romance languages came around, it had the meaning of “someone to whom I owe respect” or even “allegiance”. The allegiance part is indicated by the “my”. Look at English usage itself: a person who is in a senior position or whose job title has senior in the name isn’t necessarily older than someone in a junior position, but he is considered more experienced in their field, or has been with the company for longer, may be the junior’s hierarchical superior and trainer… ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644/65 "2017-06-21T13:26:28Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Rather ironical considering the Mexican State’s bloody-handed persecution of Catholicism through the 20th century. > > Taking a railway excursion and seeing rotting bodies dangling from the telegraph poles one after the other probably made a number of we super-sensitive people put away our sandwiches for later. Mexico is IIRC (based on the World Values Survey) one of the few countries where people are actually getting more religious, as the older generation who was inculcated into militant secularism is dying off. (Massively less fertile and also less Catholic, but also a bit more likely to be spiritual / religious). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technically-speaking-is-a-cathedral-a-church/786644.md?page=3)