Roman Catholic Church Hierarchy
Besides normal titles, there are some words that are peculiar to the Catholic Church, being found in European countries of catholic tradition:
- Don - used for members of the secular clergy, more a form of address than a title as such, don comes from a medieval styling for very esteemed persons, it is a colloquial form of Dominus - the Latin for Lord, Sir. It is still used for Bishops, or citizens in some areas (as in Spain, Portugal and Latin America).
- prevosto: provost - title used in northern Italy for important parish priests.
- arciprete: archpriest - usually used for the senior priest in an important or significant town that is not a bishop's seat, i.e. not the center of a diocese.
- curato: curate - parish priest of the countryside.
- canonico: canon - the senior priests attached to the cathedral, who have special liturgcial and administrative responsibilities both there and in the diocese.
Read more about this topic: Italian Honorifics
Famous quotes containing the words roman catholic, roman, catholic, church and/or hierarchy:
“It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now this dogma would make it impossible for me to be a Roman Catholic. If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one: what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“Lord, have mercy on us.
[Kyrie, eleison.]”
—Missal, The. The Ordinary of the Mass.
Missal is book of prayers and rites used to celebrate the Roman Catholic mass during the year.
“It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
—Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990)