IF we had a female Pope, what would her title be?

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TomS333

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The term “Pope” comes from Papa/Father, so IF we had a female Pope, would she still be a “Pope” or would she be called something else derived from a word meaning Mother.
I know it is highly unlikely to have a female Bishop of Rome, but times may change.
 
@Greenfields
No. I’m still considering whether or not I want to convert.
 
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The word for Pope in Latin is declined like a feminine noun (first declension), so someone may have been thinking ahead!
 
It’s considered intrinsically impossible, not just unlikely. It’s not metaphysically possible to ordain a woman, and it’s not possible to have an unordained pope.

Now, we could have a female cardinal.
 
ratio1 said:
first declension masculine noun
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Practically all first declension nouns are feminine in gender, except for a very few masculine ones like pirata, incola, agricola and pappa. Those are the ones I can think of. Do you recall any others?

Theoretically, a female pirate, inhabitant or farmer would use the same form of the noun, but the feminine form of the accompanying modifiers, and so, theoretically, would pappa.
 
ratio1 said:
The gender of (particularly) a common noun was and remains a grammatical phenomenon, technically independent of the actual sex of the thing described.
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I can’t think of a case in Latin were sex and gender are not the same for a personal noun, but you see it in German, where the word for child, girl and young lady are all neuter.
 
ratio1 said:
Do you mean the Latin word for Pope is a first declension masculine noun or a first declension feminine noun?
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So you still haven’t answered my question,
Do you mean the Latin word for Pope is a first declension masculine noun or a first declension feminine noun?
 
AndrewAxland said:
The word for Pope in Latin is declined like a feminine noun (first declension), so someone may have been thinking ahead!
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So I think the correct thing to say in this situation is this:
The word for Pope in Latin is declined like a first declension noun. But it is definitely a masculine noun. I don’t know where your feminine idea come from.

What you said above is quite misleading to those who doesn’t understand Latin.
 
Ok great!

We can all agree that the Latin word for Pope is a first declension MASCULINE noun. And that’s the truth.
 
The gender of a noun is determined by the endings of the modifiers that agree with it. If I were to say “Novus pappa”, then “pappa” would be masculine in gender. If I were to say “Nova pappa”, then “pappa” would be feminine in gender. And if we were having a discussion in Latin about the topic of a female pope, real or imaginary, that is a totally valid usage.

You’re contaminating your idea of gender with that of sex. There is some overlap, but they are distinct concepts.
 
It is still correct to say the Latin word for Pope is a first declension MASCULINE noun and NOT feminine.
 
No I think you are confusing declension with gender. In your original post you said the Latin word for Pope declines like a feminine noun. No it doesn’t. Nouns decline according to their declension first (surprise surprise) not according to their gender first.
 
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