Question for Lutherans

[JustaServant]

I asked our Bishop when he was at our Parish how we should address him, he said “Bishop is fine”. I asked because I had heard ‘your eminence’ was the proper greeting. He told me that is only used in Europe.

 

[JustaServant]

I thought folks in the UK didn’t consider themselves European.
Actually I figured I’d ask people from outside the US since the subject was brought up on this thread. He seemed like a pretty laid back kind of fellow, it might be a personal preference.
I’ve always referred to people by their title, it’s just polite. Most doctors I know demand to be called ‘doctor’ so-and-so.

 

[benjohnson]

Appreciated the respect that you accord to Catholic priests, Jon, but you being non-Catholic, just a Mr. Ruggero, I can assure you, will not do any damage at all.

If I may, I would suggest that as a Christian, I very much understand that Christ works through His church where the Gospel is preached and the Sacraments are administered - so if I were to intentionally call a Catholic priest by an incorrect title, that would be a denial of God’s grace.

 

[steve_b]

Oh for goodness sake, his name is NOT Don.

It’s an honorific title.
In practice, however, the style Don/Donna (or Latin Dominus/Domina) was used more loosely in church, civil and notarial records. The honorific was often accorded to the untitled gentry (e.g., knights or younger sons of noblemen), priests, or other people of distinction. It was, over time, adopted by organized criminal societies in Southern Italy (including Naples, Sicily, and Calabria) to refer to members who held considerable sway within their hierarchies.

Today in Italy, the title is usually only given to Roman Catholic diocesan priests (never for prelates, who bear higher honorifics such as monsignore, eminenza, and so on).

Outside of the priesthood or old nobility, usage is still common in the south, mostly as an honorific form to address the elderly, but rarely if ever used in central or northern Italy. It can be used satirically or ironically to lampoon a person’s sense of self-importance.

As in the Spanish usage, Don is prefixed either to the full name or to the person’s given name

That looks like a Wiki definition. I personally choose not to use Wiki as a source for anything. The reason being their

• Disclaimers

That disclaimer is at the bottom of every page of every article they write.

 

[steido01]

My name’s Don.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

That looks like a Wiki definition. I personally choose not to use Wiki as a source for anything. The reason being their

Disclaimers

That disclaimer is at the bottom of every page of every article they write.

Well, I do not know the source for what Pianist Clare posted but it is, indeed, substantially correct.

The only thing I would say by way of a correction is that “never for prelates” is perhaps a bit too strong as it will be used, even by them and for them, on occasions evoking less formality – rather not unlike when, in English speaking countries, a priest who is a monsignor prefers to be addressed simply as Father. The article correctly notes the other usages of this honorific and the regional variations.

 

[pianistclare]

That looks like a Wiki definition. I personally choose not to use Wiki as a source for anything. The reason being their

• Disclaimers

That disclaimer is at the bottom of every page of every article they write.

You’re obviously not Hispanic nor Italian.
Of course we know wiki is often sketchy.
Except when they are correct.
Sincerely,
Dona Gutierrez

 

[Don_Ruggero]

You’re obviously not Hispanic nor Italian.
Of course we know wiki is often sketchy.
Except when they are correct.
Sincerely,
Dona Gutierrez

As you say, for those who are of that culture and of that place…or closely related to it…we immediately know a citation is true or not because it is self-evident to us. We don’t have to reflect on it or research it. We live it, after all.

Thank you by the way for the article or whatever was the source for what you cited. It was very kind of you. As you can imagine, I have accumulated some repertoire of stories surrounding Americans and my title.

 

[pianistclare]

As you say, for those who are of that culture and of that place…or closely related to it…we immediately know a citation is true or not because it is self-evident to us. We don’t have to reflect on it or research it. We live it, after all.

Thank you by the way for the article or whatever was the source for what you cited. It was very kind of you. As you can imagine, I have accumulated some repertoire of stories surrounding Americans and my title.

:curtsey:

I get a bit of a giggle out of those who assume your first name is Don.
If one’s not familiar with the culture, it does sound like just a name. Not a huge deal.

We appreciate your presence on the boards, Father.
God bless you. We have already learned much from you.

 

[steve_b]

Well, I do not know the source for what Pianist Clare posted but it is, indeed, substantially correct.

This was the source

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_(honorific

excerpt

Italy

Don would be the term Italians would use for the head of the Italian crime family. Officially, Don was the style for a principe or duca (and any legitimate, male-line descendant) who was a member of the nobility (as distinct from a reigning prince or duke, who was generally entitled to some form of the higher style of Altezza). This was how the style was used in the Almanach de Gotha for extant families in its third section. The feminine, “Donna”, was borne by their wives and daughters. Genealogical databases and dynastic works still reserve the title for this class of noble by tradition, although it is no longer a right under Italian law.
In practice, however, the style Don/Donna (or Latin Dominus/Domina) was used more loosely in church, civil and notarial records. The honorific was often accorded to the untitled gentry (e.g., knights or younger sons of noblemen), priests, or other people of distinction. It was, over time, adopted by organized criminal societies in Southern Italy (including Naples, Sicily, and Calabria) to refer to members who held considerable sway within their hierarchies.
Today in Italy, the title is usually only given to Roman Catholic diocesan priests (never for prelates, who bear higher honorifics such as monsignore, eminenza, and so on).
Outside of the priesthood or old nobility, usage is still common in the south, mostly as an honorific form to address the elderly, but rarely if ever used in central or northern Italy. It can be used satirically or ironically to lampoon a person’s sense of self-importance.
As in the Spanish usage, Don is prefixed either to the full name or to the person’s given name, including crime bosses.
The form Don Lastname for criminals (as in Don Corleone) is an American custom. In southern Italy, mafia bosses are addressed as Don Firstname by other criminals and sometimes their victims as well, while the press usually refers to them as Firstname Lastname, without the honorific.
Priests are the only ones to be referred as Don Lastname by the Italian press, although when talking directly to them they are usually addressed as Don Firstname, which is also the most widely form used by parishioners when referring to their priest.
D:

The only thing I would say by way of a correction is that “never for prelates” is perhaps a bit too strong as it will be used, even by them and for them, on occasions evoking less formality – rather not unlike when, in English speaking countries, a priest who is a monsignor prefers to be addressed simply as Father. The article correctly notes the other usages of this honorific and the regional variations.

I can show you Wiki examples that will set you hair on fire.

Personally I have no use for sources that admit up front in

Disclaimers that they don’t stand behind the accuracy of their articles.

 

[pianistclare]

This was the source

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_(honorific

excerpt

Italy

Don would be the term Italians would use for the head of the Italian crime family. Officially, Don was the style for a principe or duca (and any legitimate, male-line descendant) who was a member of the nobility (as distinct from a reigning prince or duke, who was generally entitled to some form of the higher style of Altezza). This was how the style was used in the Almanach de Gotha for extant families in its third section. The feminine, “Donna”, was borne by their wives and daughters. Genealogical databases and dynastic works still reserve the title for this class of noble by tradition, although it is no longer a right under Italian law.
In practice, however, the style Don/Donna (or Latin Dominus/Domina) was used more loosely in church, civil and notarial records. The honorific was often accorded to the untitled gentry (e.g., knights or younger sons of noblemen), priests, or other people of distinction. It was, over time, adopted by organized criminal societies in Southern Italy (including Naples, Sicily, and Calabria) to refer to members who held considerable sway within their hierarchies.
Today in Italy, the title is usually only given to Roman Catholic diocesan priests (never for prelates, who bear higher honorifics such as monsignore, eminenza, and so on).
Outside of the priesthood or old nobility, usage is still common in the south, mostly as an honorific form to address the elderly, but rarely if ever used in central or northern Italy. It can be used satirically or ironically to lampoon a person’s sense of self-importance.
As in the Spanish usage, Don is prefixed either to the full name or to the person’s given name, including crime bosses.
The form Don Lastname for criminals (as in Don Corleone) is an American custom. In southern Italy, mafia bosses are addressed as Don Firstname by other criminals and sometimes their victims as well, while the press usually refers to them as Firstname Lastname, without the honorific.
Priests are the only ones to be referred as Don Lastname by the Italian press, although when talking directly to them they are usually addressed as Don Firstname, which is also the most widely form used by parishioners when referring to their priest.

I can show you Wiki examples that will set you hair on fire.

Personally I have no use for sources that admit up front in disclaimers, they don’t stand behind the accuracy of their articles.

Neither do I.
But I know enough to know that simply MY WORD on the matter will not ever satisfy you.
I find it very disrespectful to anyone, much less a cleric that you want to argue with him about his title!!!
unbelievable.
The fact is, that in some cultures the titles Don & Dona are signs of respect given to elders.
But I suppose that doesn’t matter to some.
That the term has been hijacked by the mafia is irrelevant to its usage here.

Or it should be.

 

[steve_b]

Neither do I.
But I know enough to know that simply MY WORD on the matter will not ever satisfy you.
I find it very disrespectful to anyone, much less a cleric that you want to argue with him about his title!!!
unbelievable.

I’m not arguing about his title. Where did you get THAT from? My argument is with Wiki

 

[pianistclare]

I’m not arguing about his title. Where did you get THAT from? My argument is with Wiki

Why?
In this case they happened to support the clarification that DON is not his name.
Sheesh. Of all the things to get hung up about.

 

[Reuben_J]

It was Jon who said, “Fr. Don.” Lol. It is like saying Fr. sir or Fr. Mr. Though wrong usage, Jon being non-Catholic understandably, the intention was courtesy from him.

Fr. sir? Guess no harm done there, would it?

 

[pianistclare]

It was Jon who said, “Fr. Don.” Lol. It is like saying Fr. sir or Fr. Mr. Though wrong usage, Jon being non-Catholic understandably, the intention was courtesy from him.

Fr. sir? Guess no harm done there, would it?

Of course not.

I guess you all have run out of things to say about Lutherans.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

This was the source

Personally I have no use for sources that admit up front in that they don’t stand behind the accuracy of their articles.

Well, you may have no use for such sources but, in this case, they do not have to stand behind the accuracy; those of us who are in a position to know and to judge attest of our own personal knowledge and experience of the verbiage’s accuracy.

The original source was only cited by you when a source was not even needed. The person who was commenting is from an allied culture to my own, just as the Spanish usage is allied to my culture.

Pianist Clare, I imagine, found that particular verbiage useful as it expressed, succinctly and well, what she already knew to be true.

On the other hand, MY post is from my own knowledge and experience in which I said that what she had written – and I could not care less about the source, frankly – was, in fact, quite accurate.

Personally, I would not cite a source for how in Italy we use Don and how we use Padre. I myself am the source…qualified by many decades.

One actually knowledgeable on a topic can look at something written on the topic and determine its usefulness without the need to weigh the source.

As for me, I could have WRITTEN the words myself that she put in her post since I know perfectly well the history and usage of what is, after all, my own title, which I have had now for a very long time.

It was Jon who said, “Fr. Don.” Lol. It is like saying Fr. sir or Fr. Mr.

The analogy, actually for me, to being called Father Don would not be addressing in the United States a priest as either “Father Sir” or “Father Mister” but, actually, “Father Padre” or, perhaps, “Padre Monsignor.” One of the two is to be a title and one of the two is to be a name, not the repetition of a title in two languages. Besides, one honorific is adequate since I am not a Habsburg.

I am always very touched by my interactions with the Lutherans and Anglicans on this forum as well as their evident knowledge and awareness of the positions of the Holy See since the Council rather than talking about terms of long past as though they still had any currency. It seems to me as though they have quite taken to heart both the Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism and the passage from From Conflict to Communion: “The awareness is dawning on Lutherans and Catholics that the struggle of the sixteenth century is over. The reasons for mutually condemning each other’s faith have fallen by the wayside.”

JonNC’s friendship is cordially appreciated.

In any event, if I may be allowed to say, how to understand or misunderstand “Don Ruggero” seems to me less a divide between Lutherans and Catholics than it is a divide between Americans and Europeans. Although I gather that the popularity of Don Matteo may be making some Americans more aware than they might have been in years past.

 

[JonNC]

:curtsey:

I get a bit of a giggle out of those who assume your first name is Don.
If one’s not familiar with the culture, it does sound like just a name. Not a huge deal.

We appreciate your presence on the boards, Father.
God bless you. We have already learned much from you.

Glad to be of service in the provision of giggles.

Seriously, please pardon my ignorance, and thanks for the information.

Jon

 

[pianistclare]

Glad to be of service in the provision of giggles.

Seriously, please pardon my ignorance, and thanks for the information.

Jon

No worries. You’ve been a good friend and a wonderful poster from the first day we met online. I learn a lot from your compassionate and educated posts. God bless you Jon!

 

[pianistclare]

HAHAHA!
Maybe Father Ruggero could be the “DON” of Catholic Answers.
He could make us an offer, er, post we can’t refuse! :hey_bud:

“No disrespect”

 

[steve_b]

Well, you may have no use for such sources but, in this case, they do not have to stand behind the accuracy; those of us who are in a position to know and to judge attest of our own personal knowledge and experience of the verbiage’s accuracy.

Then consider this as an example

Change the name Wikipedia to Vatican. What if the Vatican put on all it’s documents they published, these Disclaimers , at the bottom of each page, would that be okay with you? Would you trust what the Vatican printed?

As far as my comments on Wiki, I’m merely voicing the opinion of the academic community. theguardian.com/education/2013/may/13/should-university-students-use-wikipedia