Capitalizing the 'She' and 'Her' referencing Mary

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FuzzyBunny116

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Isn’t capitalizing You, and Him, and He, etc, only supposed to be for God? That is, aren’t you only supposed to capitalize those words when referring to Him?

I have a prayer card that does the same for Mary, and I’ve seen a paragraph about an apparition of her where it capitalizes her name. Is this alright?
 
This is a matter of literary style, not Catholic teaching. While, in my opinion, capitalizing pronouns referring to God and not capitalizing pronouns referring to Mary or other saints (except where required for grammatical purposes, such as at the beginnings of sentences) is a good custom, it is not universal. The NAB and the CCC, for example, do not capitalize pronouns referring to God. This does not indicate that these works deny the divinity of God. Neither, therefore, should it be assumed that persons who capitalize pronouns referring to Mary or other saints are confusing Mary or other saints with God.
 
It’s more a geographical/time period thing. None of the older books and stuff I have capitalize any pronouns.
 
Yes, it’s perfectly fine to capitalize pronouns for Mary as well as God. For that matter, it’s perfectly fine to capitalize pronouns for other people too 😃 In German, it is the custom of the language to capitalize “You” when writing a letter, even if its a letter to a lowly peasant 😛 In other languages, there doesn’t even exist capital letters or lowercase letters. Also in English, personal pronouns are still capitalized even when speaking to a mere mortal like “Your Honor” or “Your Holiness” or “Your Eminence” or “His Honor” “His Holiness” “His Eminence” “His Excellency” et – this includes both ecclesiastical and secular titles.

In the past personal pronouns for the Pope were also apparently sometimes capitalized – and not just with the style “His Holiness” but personal pronouns in general, at least in some formal letters. Actually, this is still true today. If you look at one of the early homilies written by present Pope Benedict XVI – as written in the original Latin, not in a translation which leaves this out – he refers to his person we the royal, capitailized We, Our, etc.

So if it’s kosher to do it for a Pope, it’s surely kosher to do it for the Queen of the Pope.

It is natural however to feel strange when first seeing it since in your mind you may have associated with signifying supreme divinity. But with time, as long as you are not overly-scrupulous or somehow hostile to Mary’s grandeur, you will get used to it. 🙂

Joseph is correct about the CCC. However the CCC does on about two occasions capitalize a pronoun for God. I don’t know about Mary. The reason why it does capitalize on a couple rare occasions is to remove grammatical ambiguity (i.e. some may wonder if the pronoun’s antecedent is God or some other term in the sentence like man – and so capitalizing it removes any potential ambiguity)
 
I tend to reserve the capitalization of She/Her to refer to the Church, the Bride of Christ.

But, I see no fault in sharing the gesture of respect with Mary, as she is the Queen of Heaven. It certainly isn’t offensive or an insult to God or the Trinity. I would think they’d be pleased to see us respect her so.

*Funny how I didn’t capitalize “she” or 'her" in that previous paragraph…didn’t even occur to me as it does when I’m thinking about referring to the Church. I guess I haven’t developed the practice of doing so over time.
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FuzzyBunny116:
Isn’t capitalizing You, and Him, and He, etc, only supposed to be for God? That is, aren’t you only supposed to capitalize those words when referring to Him?

I have a prayer card that does the same for Mary, and I’ve seen a paragraph about an apparition of her where it capitalizes her name. Is this alright?
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I am with you. I would not be comfortable with that either…
 
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