Posted on 02/04/2016 8:07:50 AM PST by Salvation
Many groups have a tendency to use words that make sense to their members but are unintelligible to outsiders. I have sometimes had to decode "Church-speak" for recent converts.
For example, one time I proudly announced, "RCIA classes will begin next week, so if you know anyone who is interested in attending please fill out an information card on the table just outside the sacristy door." I thought I'd been perfectly clear, but then a new member approached me after Mass to inquire about the availability of classes to become Catholic and when they would begin. Wondering if she'd forgotten the announcement I reminded her what I had said about RCIA classes. She looked at me blankly. "Oh," I said, "Let me explain what I mean by RCIA." After I did so, I mentioned that she could pick up a flyer over by the sacristy door. Again I got a blank stare, followed by the question "What's a sacristy?" Did I dare tell her that the classes would be held in the rectory?
I've had a similar reaction when announcing CCD classes. One angry parent called me to protest that she had been told by the DRE (more Church-speak) that her daughter could not make her First Holy Communion unless she started attending CCD. The mother, the non-Catholic wife of a less-than-practicing Catholic husband, had no idea what CCD meant and why it should be required in order for her daughter to receive Holy Communion. She had never connected the term CCD with Sunday school or any form of religious instruction.
Over my years as a priest I have become more and more aware that although I use what I would call ordinary terms of traditional Catholicism, given the poor catechesis (another Church word, meaning religious training, by the way) of so many, the meaning of what I am saying is lost. For example, I have discovered that some Catholics think that "mortal sin" refers only to killing someone. Even the expression "grave sin" is nebulous to many; they know it isn't good, but aren't really sure what it means. "Venial sin" is even less understood!
Other words such as covenant, matrimony, incarnation, transubstantiation, liturgy, oration, epistle, gospel, Collect, Sanctus, chalice, paten, alb, Holy Orders, theological, missal, Monsignor, and Eucharistic, while meaningful to many in the Church, are often only vaguely understood by others in the Church, not to mention the unchurched (is that another Church word?).
Once at daily Mass I was preaching based on a reading from the First Letter of John and was attempting to make the point that our faith is "incarnational." I noticed vacant looks out in the pews. And so I asked the small group gathered that day if anyone knew what "incarnational" meant; no one did. I went on to explain that it meant that the Word of God had to become flesh in us; it had to become real in the way we live our lives. To me, the word "incarnational" captured the concept perfectly, but most of the people didn't even really know for sure what "incarnation" meant, let alone "incarnational."
Ah, Church-speak!
During my years in the seminary the art of Church-speak seemed to rise to new levels. I remember that many of my professors, while railing against the use of Latin in the liturgy, had a strange fascination with Greek-based terminology. Mass was out, Eucharist was in. "Going to mass" was out, "confecting the synaxis" was in. Canon was out, "anamnesis" and "anaphora" were in. Communion was out, koinonia was in. Mystagogia, catechumenate, mysterion, epikaia, protoevangelion, hapax legomenon, epiklesis, synderesis, eschatology, Parousia, and apakatastasis were all in. These are necessary words, I suppose, but surely opaque to most parishioners. Church-speak indeed, or should I say ekklesia-legomenon.
Ah, Church-speak! Here is an online list of many other Church words for your edification (and amusement): Church words defined
At any rate, I have learned to be a little more careful when speaking so as to avoid too much Church-speak, too many insider terms, too many older terms, without carefully explaining them. I think we can and should learn many of them, but we should not assume that most people know them.
The great and Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that he discovered early on that he often got credit for being learned when in fact he was merely being obscure. And for any who knew him in his later years, especially through his television show, he was always very careful to explain Church teaching in a way that made it accessible to the masses. It's good advice for all of us: a little less of the CCD and RCIA jargon and little more of the clear "religious instruction" can help others to decode our Church-speak.
I would not argue that we should "dumb down" our vocabulary, for indeed it is a precious patrimony in many cases. But we need to do more explaining rather than merely presuming that most people will know what some of our terms mean.
This video has a lot of gibberish in it, but it illustrates how we can sound at times if we're not careful!
Your Thursday laugh break.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Catholic or otherwise, all churches should ban the use of acronyms, especially in conversation. This is especially difficult in large denominations. Terms like “rectory” and “sacristy” are a challenge. Maybe they could be explained in a glossary left helpfully in the pew racks?
Bttt.
5.56mm
Ok...so how did this 'new member' become Catholic w/o going through RCIA?
What's a "pew?"
Regards,
Thanks for this posting, I’m glad to see those inside religion thinking about it at least.
I grew up in the great wilderness that most of the world lives in with NO religious instruction, I didn’t even know what Christmas was about, what an angel was (tho I knew the word) etc.
I attended a Catholic class when I was 9 years old and was blown out of the water at the words they used (transubstantiation was one) and so lost that I never went back nor became Catholic.
I wanted to belong to Christianity and it took me until I was 52 years old. I am Lutheran (Missouri-Synod) and even now I ask what seem to be dumb questions (though my pastor is always glad to be asked) like what does the actual word Gospel mean? (Good News).
Those “inside” religion have no idea what a howling, cold wilderness it is outside of it and how much most people do not know, “sacristy” and acronyms are the least of it.
2. Stop with all the acronyms. I work at a company that LOVES acronyms. I've been here 15 years and see new ones everyday and it is never explained as to what they mean. Take the time to use complete phrases and say what you mean.
The morons will thank you.
The article is talking about Catholic church speak. Southern Baptists have an equally funny version...
I am currently preaching for a Krio based language group and I have to be very careful in every statement.
They have had so many “learned” men speaking before them and they walk away with nothing for the spirtual journey.
But God gives grace and even the most humble lessons are met with joy and appreciation.
Confuscious say, man who fart in church sit in own pew.
It’s just like when you try to speak French to someone, and you are dreadfully poor at it, then they tell you they speak English - you are so relieved, you speak a hundred miles an hour and full of slang! (But they were not THAT much better at English!)
We know only what we’re used to doing in our neighborhood.
“...railing against the use of Latin in the liturgy...”
Assuming it is commonly known what a liturgy is....
Yep. I quote my high-school English teacher: “Speak not so that you can be understood, but so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood.”
The Catholic buzz-word that really gets me is “brokenness”. I really hate that— like the congregation, full of sane and productive human beings, is ready for the psychiatrist couch and a box of tissues.
Protestants have their words, too. When I was the only Catholic in the Cal-tech graduate Christian fellowship, I was tripped up by “discipling” and “convicted” as I “fellowshipped”. It was amusing, though, to learn that my denomination was not the only one mired in buzzwords.
LOL!
What about “oblation”?
A non-catholic friend once referred to them as bleachers.
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