Prefix for priests?

Question

My great uncle is a Catholic priest and I've put "Father" in the prefix field and I'm getting an error notice for it. What should his title be?

Comments

One of the things that would help explain "Father" in the prefix would be to add the Order, if you know it, in the suffix.  So, for the Cistercian Order, add ‎OCist or SOCist; for the Dominican order, O.P.; for the Franciscan order, O.F.M., etc.  If you know the Order but not the abbreviation, could may be able to find it HERE.

---

Gee I never heard of Prefixes like that, good luck answering that question I hope you find that answer, cause I would like to know also.

---

Comment removed.

---

Comment removed.

---

Victoria, that is a lot of very good work. Thank you for such input. I have a question for everyone though. If we add a prefix for a priest will we also add for reverend, pastor, rabbi, sheikh, allamah, maharaja or any level of religious leader? Also remember that Prefix such as Ph.D. and Th.D. are not only restricted to Catholicism. We are a world tree. Will we embrace world religions? Is there another possibility to honor such distinguished men and women? I don't know I am just asking before we endeavor in a task that may be very large. Or maybe just leave the prefix "open" for any of our religious leaders.  I do not know, just thinking. Thanks for allowing this conversation for more possibilities. Another question that just crossed my mind is What are these prefixes in other languages? Some of the above are written in Latin but not all.

---

Comment removed.

---

Victoria English, before you begin insulting please reread my comments. I never repeat never inferred that you were prejudicing against other religions. Where did you see that? Please tell me. My question was if there are going to be  prefixes for Catholicism are we going to open the door to all religions? Nobody said anything against the Catholic religion but I invited the possibility of having prefixes for other religions also. In fact I even asked if there was a possibility of honoring these men and women another way! No matter how that you look at it in your own way, I personally know a D.D. and a Ph.D. and they are not Catholic. Amazing isn't it? So should my Ph.D. friend be able to have a prefix before his name or will some bot  remove it because he is not Catholic? I just asked because if it is allowed for Catholicism would it be allowed for other religions? Where does that show a problem with Catholicism? There is no problem except in your own mind. I have no problem with any language. The question was will this be open to all languages. Some of the above abbreviations are in English. Not every Catholic in the world calls their priest "Father"  In other languages they use their own word for father. Would they have to use the English abbreviation  or could they use an abbreviation in their own language?  That is all I was trying to ask. Here is an idea, include all languages not only English. I can speak some Spanish and Polish. and somewhat less Welsh. I am not Hispanic. Now do you understand why I asked about other languages? Not everyone speaks English.

The original question said that she put Father in the "prefix" field. That is why I said prefix. Go back and read it. That is the only reason I used the word "prefix".

On Feb 4, 2017 I asked a question about Latin translation. Barnaby Dolman born in 1687  Please read it and the helpful answers and comments. I did not ask if someone was Catholic nor do I dislike Latin. *Does not seem like I had a problem with Latin and in this question. I do not have a problem with Latin anytime. I just pointed out that some of the abbreviations were in Latin and some were in English. 

"Esoteric la-la land"?   es-o-ter-ic  Intended for or likely to be understood by a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. I was asking about all languages and all religions that want to be involved. By the way 983 million people speak English or about 13% of the World Population according to Ethnologue. The British Council says that about 25% of the world's population has some understanding of English. There is an estimated 7.5 Billion people in the world and there are about 1.2 Billion Catholics which is about 16% of the world population. When I asked about other religions All Christianity not only Catholicism is about 31%,  Islam about 23%, Hinduism 15%, Buddhism 7%, and Jewish 0.2% plus other religions. Neither not speaking English nor not being Catholic is hardly esoteric la-la-land as you described it. I live in the United States and WikiTree headquarters is based in the United States. There is freedom of religion here. If you do not know, everybody in the world is invited in WikiTree. Please read under Community I also know that Wikitree welcomes all religions, that is why I asked. If there s going to be something accepted of one religion I was wondering if another religion abbreviations would be accepted or would it be  read by the bots as an error. 

This was a simple comment that appears that you blew way out of context. I will NOT apologize for believing everyone has their right to their own religion. If you feel that my comment was offensive and an insult to your intelligence, that seems to be your problem and your attack on my reply is forgiven. I am a Christian and I believe in tolerance  and forgiveness. Other times I have received comments back to me from non religious people that were not as harsh as your comments. If you have a problem with my comment then please report it to Wikitree instead of showing hate and intolerance publicly. Any further comments on this subject should be sent to me privately instead of involving the entire Wikitree community please.

---

Jerry,

Whatever your issue is, please, do not contact me again. Do not refer to me. Do not respond or comment to anything with my name attached. Go find someone else to harass. I'm walking away from this now, please do not start it up.

---

Jerry, another point - English is the shared language for all international airlines.

Answer 1

There are formal ways to address the Catholic religious, as well for other denominations.

A secular priest is formally addressed as Reverend N N, or Father N N. When speaking to him, use Father.

A priest who is a member of a religious order is addressed similarly, but with the initials of his order after his name. When speaking to him, use Father.

Most priests much prefer to be addressed as "Father" and not as "Reverend."

Comments

Please pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a "secular priest"?  The term sounds like an oxymoron to me, although I admit to knowing nothing about Catholicism.

---

I'll admit the term "secular clergy" sounds odd, but it is the term that applies to priests and deacons who are not monastics or members of a religious order, who are referred to as the "regular" clergy. They are also referred to as diocesan clergy, or in the case of an archdiocese, archdiocesan clergy. The religious orders are the Jesuits, Domicans, to name only two, so the secular clergy are not members of these orders. The secular clergy would have no initials after their names.

The regular clergy follow the rule of the order they belong to, that is they take the vows of the order and live in that community. Since the secular clergy do not take those vows, they live in the world at large, that is, in the secular world.

---

I think I get it - a secular priest is one who ministers to the secular world, while priests in orders detach themselves from the world.  THANX much!

---

A secular priest is what is commonly called a ''parish priest''. They are diocesan priests who are usually assigned a parish, either as a pastor, or pastor's assistant.

---

Parish priests can be order priests. Instead of using Secular Priests which is preVatican II terminology it is now Diocesan Priests. Diocesan priests are appointed and directly report to the bishop of the diocese. Order priests report to the Superior of the Order and follow a spiritual rule. They are not restricted to a particular diocese.

Answer 2

If 'Father' was what he was called then 'Father' is correct - what you have to do is mark the 'error' as a false one, as the word 'Father' in this case is a title not a position in the family.

This I have done for you (marked it as false) and the 'error' wont show up on the next weeks report

Answer 3

I grew up in town with many Catholics,Priest was referred to as Father,

Nuns Sister and men as brother.Do not know if thats approved or not.

Answer 4

One way to avoid the confusion between "Father" as a title and father as a family relationship would be to abbreviate it as Fr.  That would then parallel what we do with many other titles -- we put in Rev, not Reverend, and Dr, not Doctor.

Comments

Jack, if you'll permit me to play devil's advocate ... We are instructed to avoid using abbreviations everywhere else (mostly seen in place names) because of WikiTree's international nature requiring us to be conscious of the many viewers of our work who are not familiar with the language used in a particular profile.  Why, then, should we use abbreviations for titles with impunity?  For whatever it's worth, even as a native user of American English, when I see "Fr." my first thought is that it means French and my second would be Friar (although I'm not even sure exactly what a Friar is).  I don't even know whether Father would ever occur to me.

---

In Catholicism, a friar is a member of a mendicant order, whereas a monk is  a member of monastic order. A friar or monk is not necessarily a priest, but a priest who is also a member of one of these orders is also a friar or a monk.

A friar is addressed as "Brother N," and is not addressed as friar.

---

Wow, my head is spinning now, but I think it's all starting to sink in and make a little sense to me.  THANX, George!

---

George is correct but I'll just add that the English word friar is simply the French frère (brother) slightly garbled. Mendicant orders engage directly with the poor and the sick, living among them, whereas the monastic orders lived apart from society. There were several mendicant orders in medieval London up until the Dissolution and they are remembered in street-names like Blackfriars (Dominicans), Whitefriars (Carmelites), Austin Friars (Augustinians) and the more mysterious Crutched Friars (the Fratres Cruciferi).

---

I have always found the history of religion to be immensely interesting. The organizational structure of churches, regardless of denomination, is fascinating in its own right.

In some countries, genealogy and the church are closely connected, as in Mexico for example. The Catholic Church in Mexico dates from the Conquest, with the earliest records dating from the early 1500s. Where to look for diocesan records depends on the time period you are interested. There were very few dioceses in the early years, but they were divided numerous times creating the many that exist today.

In the United States, with the multitude of denominations, an appreciation of religion has value. For example, a portion of Upstate New York is referred to as the "Burnt over region" due to all the religious revivals in the early 1800s. This is where the LDS church began.

I have wandered off the original topic ... but the prefixes (titles) are somewhat more complex than just looking at the Catholic Church!

---

Just a note that the "Prefix" field is limited to 10 characters: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Name_Fields#Prefix.

---

Coincidentally, "Fr." is the beginning of the word "Frère" - Brother. So it could be confusing (for a tiny, negligible fraction of WikiTree users, it is true) to use this abbreviation for a priest.

Answer 5

Rev. for Reverend works for Catholic priests as well as other denominations.

Answer 6

Hello Lisa,

All of the Catholic priests I've seen or that I've biographied are using the prefix "Rev. Fr." for Reverend Father.

Answer 7

My grandma's cousin was a Catholic priest, and I happened to add him to WikiTree. I forget exactly how I ended up there, but the prefix I have is "Rev". Maybe I just used what's on his headstone.

His sister was a nun, and I think I was given some grief over "Sr." They seem to think you're screwing up, and putting "Senior" at the beginning instead of the end. But there was an option to say, basically, "Don't worry about it, she's a nun." She changed her given and middle names, too, which is always fun.  

I think I actually did some research on what's proper, for at least one of them. I don't see "Rev" on the above list, but this was obviously a very religious family, and they also happened to be very learned and proper as well, so I'd go with what they did over some list any day (not knocking the list, though). I suppose these conventions might even change over time. My own research may not have included "Rev", either, aside from the headstone.

Answer 8

That was a fantastic list but you’ve left one out. My husband is an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church and his title is Rev Deacon.

Answer 9

Now take all of this and multiply it by all possible languages that we are supposed to use according to our name guidelines (We aim to use the names that people themselves would have known and that would have been recognized in their own time and place) and I think you'll come up with a pretty good argument to relegate these titles to the bio.

Comments

I think that the more distinguishing elements, the less likely people with similar names will be confused. When you may have 3 or four generations with the same name, living at the same time, every suffix like MP or LLD or DD or KG or OBE, every prefix such as Rev or Canon or Doctor helps. 

Prefixes and suffixes also  immediately tell you something about the person. Lastly people , in some societies, place importance on achievements  and honours, we should defer to what was appropriate in the country, at the time. Naturally evidence for the prefix or suffix should be in the profile.

Obviously, the use of prefixes and suffixes will vary between culture and country and we won't recognise those from countries we know little about; answer, look it up or ask the relevant project .

Certainly a simple algorithm for error checking won't work. 

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/564718/edited-title-please-dont-change-suggestion-without-checking

---

Helmut, Your answer was one of the possibilities that I thought of. when I posted above. I had no desire to upset anyone. I thought it was a legitimate question. IMHO I believe that with the original question and all of the questions afterward, I think that whatever the title may be should apply just like any  other title such as doctor. I read your link to prefix and suffix and that makes a lot of sense. I imagine that would also be the case for the military also. Thanks for the explanation.it makes things easier.

---

Jerry, I didn't think your question was going to cause any upset myself. I was just responding to the long lists of abbreviations, of course all in English, that would sow more confusion in a multilingual environment if everybody tried to do the same in their language.

---

I've never, ever heard of a Catholic priest referred to as "Reverend" in my country. Never.

---

In Germany it's "Herr Pfarrer" or "Stadtpfarrer" if it's a city parish, but if the priest belongs to a monastic order it's "Pater", if he is a monk but not a priest it's "Bruder", and if he is a member of the Dominican Chorherren it's Just "Herr". Confusing enough?

---

We use "Père" for a priest, "Frère" for a monk (though perhaps not all orders), except if the monk is also a priest. The term "curé" is reserved to the priest who heads a parish (or "cure"). The fun thing is that the abbrevation for Frère is the same as the English abbreviation for Father.

---

Helmut, Than you for understanding. It is ok that person wrote an upsetting replies. They were this persons thoughts and feelings at that time. I do believe that such scathing remarks should have been done in private but all comments are welcome in my G2G comments. There is no harm done.

Isabelle thank you for the explanations and translations. I do not know the words but You have made Wikitree a little easier to understand.

---

As we are discussing job titles here the list seems endless. Should a Chief Executive Officer when put in the prefix be shortened to CEO.  Why are only a few businesses given the dubious honour of prefix titles? Should for instance Andrew Copson have the prefix Chief Executive of Humanists UK  or perhaps CEHUK added? Or should the profile indexing exclude this as that wasn't what he was known at at birth. Now explain, lucidly, why this doesn't happen in all cases.