I always refer to my priest as “Father X”. I feel very uncomfortable addressing those older than me by their first name, no matter who they are! (With the exception of family and close friends, of course!) I always call my professors “Dr. X” as well. Some students use the professors’ first names, whether they ask specifically to do so or not. I can’t imagine doing that…
Maybe it’s a cultural thing, to address everybody by their first names?
Even as an older student (a grandmother) I felt uncomfortable calling college instructors by their first name even when they gave permission. Yes, we called the monks who taught at my first college by first name, but that was a different case. Activities such as community sports programs allow for a familiarity that includes using only the given name. At the college level, it becomes Coach X or Dr X. Military personal are addressed by their rank.
I think this is very insightful. We call them “Father” for a reason. It isn’t just a title of respect, it is supposed to be a relationship. Sadly, in large parishes, it is rarely the case that parishioners and priests are afforded such a relationship, but it remains the ideal.
I would never think about calling my parents by their first name. It was always Mom and Dad. My older siblings called them Ma and Pa. Jesus cried for his Daddy, Abba, from the cross. I saved the title “Father” for priests.
My mother-in-law insisted I call her mother. I never shared with her the same intimacy I had with my biological mother.
For the most part, my family was more formal than my husband’s. My siblings and I laughed at stories in which fathers told their children not to call them “sir.” When speaking to my parents, we did respond with “sir” and “ma’am.” It was simply a normal part of our speech. As the 4th commandment says, we were expected to honor them at all times. It was my mother who mentioned how the brother’s children always addressed her and my father as Grandma and Grandpa Last Name. My daughter differentiated her father’s parents from mine by calling them Grandmother and Granddad.
Now that I am a grandparent, my grandchildren call me Grandma Last Name. My husband, now deceased, had them calling him Grandpa First Name. Before calling me Grandma Last Name, my granddaughter called me Grandma with the long hair.
There are over 40,000 families in my overseas parish. Masses are celebrated 15 times in 8 different languages over the weekend. I find relationships with the priests to be as strong here as in any other parish to which I have belonged. Close relationships are developed within the different ministries. The stereotype of Japanese taking pictures of everything has nothing on the Filopinos.
