“Romney’s proper title is Bishop Romney. He is a senior cleric...”Yes, this is what I wrote, that Romney is a senior cleric, as the "he" is a deictic (or anaphor or pronoun) that resolves to "Romney", as in ROMNEY is a senior cleric, just as an ex-president is a SENIOR statesman. See how that works? What I said was literally, on its face,true in the most trivial sense of the word "true," and true on your own terms despite your many wasted keystrokes for no good reason other than to satisfy your wounded vanity at the expense of your diminished dignity.
That was unacceptably rude. Shame on you.
LOL. That's almost clever. Very good. “A” for effort.
But as to your analogy, calling Mr. Romney a “senior cleric” of the Mormon tradition isn't like calling a former President of the United States a “senior statesmen,” but rather more like calling the former president of the local homeowners’ association a “senior statesmen,” at least by your non-standard definition. I suppose, though, that there will be folks prone to exaggeration and hyperbole who would go there, too.
Of course, the other obvious logical problem with your formulation is that the better parallelism from "[current] cleric" to "[former but now] senior cleric" would not be "[current] president" to "[former but now] senior statesman," but rather to "[former but now] senior president," which doesn't quite work.
In any event, for folks who belong to highly-structured hierarchical ecclesial communities, “senior cleric” means someone who is a.) currently a cleric; and b.) of a status in the hierarchy at least a little higher up than the first rung or two of the hierarchical ladder. Especially a community with as many rungs as the LDS.
“That you would even care...”
Did you think that was it? That I care what you think? Not quite. I just like reminding myself that I've been delightfully unemployed for over two decades. I hope it lasts. I pray God that it does. I'd hate to get a real job at this point in my life.
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