Unless it’s French and followed by the word ‘collective’ in which case it’s a union contract.
But the word ‘congress’ as in ‘Eucharistic Congress’ means a gathering, yes?
Congress comes from the verb to congregate or to gather
Convention comes from the verb to convene or to call together
I guess if Americans were to be sticklers for proper English, it would be a Congress, because it’s a gathering, not really a response to a call or convention.
The Founding Fathers used it correctly when they called the two houses of the legislature the Congress. It is a congregation or gathering of the representatives
Many of these terms that seem silly to us are not so silly. The sound silly to us because we are Americans and until the arrival of the Asians and the Hispanics, we rarely used any other language except English. But our English is not standard English. It’s American English. So many of these terms that the Church uses come from Standard English or from other languages where they were first used and then translated into English. So it sounds weird to us.
For example, someone said that the presider sounded strange or silly, instead of priest. But the word presider has been in Catholic jargon for centuries. Because in monasteries the person who presides at a service, except the mass, can be a priest, brother, sister or nun.
For example, a deacon can preside over the marriage liturgy. It would be incorrect to call him the celebrant, because the minister does not do the marrying. The couple does the marrying. The minister is the Church’s witness. What else do we call him? In mission lands often lay people replace priests and deacons at weddings, usually catechists. Because the couple marries themselves through the vows and the consummation of the marriage, you don’t need an ordained minister. It is preferable, but canon law allows for another Catholic to witness the marriage, the same with baptism. That’s how the term presider slipped out of the monastery into the parish.
The same with the term Associate Pastor vs. Assistant Pastor. They are not the same. Legally they are different. An Associate Pastor has certain legal rights in the Church that an Assistant Pastor does not have. We did not have Associate Pastors in the USA until after Vatican II, because we are considered a young church. We didn’t need them. Now we do.
One term that no one mentioned which has been incorrectly used in the USA for hundreds of years, NUN.
There are Sisters and there are Nuns and they’re not the same.
Sister can be a title in front of a woman religious: Sister Mary
Bust Sister Mary can be either a Sister or a Nun.
Most are Sisters.
Nuns live in cloisters and do not perform any ministry in the Church. They never leave their cloister. They also take different vows. They take solemn vows and they belong to religious orders.
Sisters live in convents, perform all kinds of apostolic ministries from teaching to gardening. They can live outside the convent. They do not take solemn vows. They take simple vows and they do not belong to religious orders. They belong to Congregations.
There is a BIG difference between an order and a congregation. Those are two other words that we use incorrectly.
Most religious belong to congregations, not to religious orders. Religious orders have certain rights and obligations that congregations do not have.
While some words sound silly to us. Our use of some words sound silly to Canon Lawyers, bishops and theologians.
JR
