Points taken off in school for capitalizing “Church”

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hmikell7

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I recently wrote an essay for a college class. In this assignment we had to set goals for ourselves for the foreseeable future and discuss them at length. One of my goals was to become more active in the Church and to attend more Church events. I capitalized the word Church routinely throughout the assignment because I was referring specifically to the one true Church, which is the Body of Christ.

The professor has taken points off for capitalizing the word Church, Divine, and Mysteries. Do I have a defense against her to get her to raise my grade?
 
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Several questions come to mind - are you at a Catholic institution? If so, you have a better (albeit still weak) argument depending on your answer to the next question.

If not, when you first used those words as proper nouns, did you specify that? For example, “in the Roman Catholic Church (“the Church”), the priest . . .” If you did not, then I think your argument would be very weak.
 
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It’s an extremely petty reason to deduct marks. But I wouldn’t complain because the lecturer may take it out on you in other ways.
 
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hmikell7 said:
The professor has taken points off for capitalizing the word Church, Divine, and Mysteries.
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I think we have to recognize that the rules governing the use of language may vary in accordance with the targeted readership. For example, in a news bulletin released today by the Holy See Press Office (link below) we are told that the Pope met yesterday with “His Eminence Cardinal Angelo Amato, S.DB., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.” In an AP news report on the same subject, we read only of ”a meeting with the head of the Vatican’s saint-making office.” The AP sees its job as writing for newspaper readers around the world who have little or no interest in the names and titles of Vatican officials. A brief description does the job more effectively.

In your case, your professor evidently expects you to follow the rules of standard English. As part of a proper name, the word “Church” will be duly capitalized: the First Southern Baptist Church of Phoenix, the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, and so on, but not otherwise.

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/03/07/180307c.html

https://cruxnow.com/ap/2018/03/07/pope-approves-sainthood-slain-salvador-archbishop-romero/
 
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Yes I do, in Washington state, and I attend a public college, not private.
 
I’d say it depends. If she took off a lot of points, then it’s worth a shot. The same thing happened to me when I was at college. But since I only lost 1 or 2 points and it didn’t drop me down a letter grade, I let it go.
 
Saxum said:
Praise God! I love Romero!
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Thirty-eight years have passed since Archbishop Romero was murdered while celebrating Mass. He can safely be canonized now, I think, because by this time Liberation Theology has receded far enough into the past to be perceived as no longer a threat to the status quo.
 
BartholomewB said:
Thirty-eight years have passed since Archbishop Romero was murdered while celebrating Mass. He can safely be canonized now, I think, because by this time Liberation Theology has receded far enough into the past to be perceived as no longer a threat to the status quo
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Romero did not support liberation theology. He was traditional. He was close to Opus Dei.
 
Opposition to his canonization among the bishops of Latin America has been grounded, historically, on the perception that it would be seen as conferring top-level Vatican approval on the Liberation Theology movement.
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BartholomewB said:
Opposition to his canonization among the bishops of Latin America has been grounded, historically, on the perception that it would be seen as conferring top-level Vatican approval on the Liberation Theology movement.
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I know but I can’t understand why. Romero did not read liberation theology. His most used reference were the Fathers. All through his life, Romero tried to think with the mind of the Church.
 
Based on the examples you quoted, OP, I would say you should not have capitalized “church” all the time. You have a case when referring to the universal body, but “church activities” and the like are generally taken as referring to your local parish church, and the word is not capitalized in that case.

I don’t think even the Catechism routinely capitalizes “divine” and “mysteries,” or even God’s pronouns (which definitely used to be a thing that was always capitalized).

If it had been a question of capitalizing “God” or “Eucharist” or something, you might have a better case.

This is certainly not a First Amendment issue, but a question of English usage.
 
No, i don’t attend a Catholic college rn, though I am planning to transfer to one soon. To answer the other part of your question, yes, I had specified that the “Church” I was referring to was the Catholic Church at the beginning of the paper. As well as that, I made it clear when I used the word “Divine” that I was referring to the Christian God. And I made it clear in the paper that when I used the word “Mysteries” it was being used in the context of theology, Catholic Tradition, and Holy Scripture. In which cases (I believe) it should be capitalized, because it is being used to refer to a very specific thing by name, rather than as a descriptor
 
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They probably wanted you to continue saying “Catholic Church,” since that was what you started with. Merely capitalizing the word “CHURCH” does not work in correct grammer.
 
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What were the style guidelines you were supposed to follow? If, for example, you were following Catholic News Service style, she would be justified in marking you down.
 
But the thing is that I wasn’t using the word “church” in some vague context. I wasn’t referring to “a church” or “churches”, I had clarified earlier that it was the Catholic Church, and the context in which it was used was “the Church”. Referring to the institution as a whole, not as a building. So wouldn’t that just be a shortening of the name from “the Catholic Church” to “the Church”? Since I had specified the institution, then shortened it, it still counts as being the name of the institution, right?
 
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Sge didn’t really give us any guidelines. We use a variety of different formats, and she didn’t even specify whether or not to use MLA or AMA. The assignment was essentially this: write a paper 4 - 6 pages long reflecting on the past year of your life, the last quarter at the school, and then write about what you’re planning to do with your life in the next year. Outside of that, she didn’t specify anything. So I just wrote it like I write most of my papers, which is MLA
 
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I guess maybe I’m just wrong about the capitalization thing. Which is odd to me, I grew up going to a Protestant private school, and they actually instructed us to (a) always use divine pronouns when referring to God, and (b) always to capitalize the word “Church” when referring to our own Christian denomination. And we were taught that that was the proper way to do things.

Even though I long ago stopped using divine pronouns (He, Him, His), I still for some reason believed you were supposed to capitalize Church. After researching this more, I’m starting to realize I might have been tragically misinformed.
 
If you weren’t given style guides to follow, it’s not your fault. And as long as you were consistent throughout the paper, I think marking you off is unreasonable.

Although you see it done, capitalizing pronouns for God originated in Protestantism. Church, when referring to the Body of Christ, is usually capitalized (except by the aforementioned CNS).

The other words you mentioned should probably be lowercase.
 
In referring to the Divine, capitalization is standard. Since, as you point out, the Church (people) is the Mystical presence of Christ, Church should be capitalized. Merely pull up some Vatican documents which do the same and your case will be won.
 
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