From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Do you have any insight into why Dioceses stopped using the word, “the” before words such as “priesthood”, “Eucharist, or “Church”, etc? It irritates me, as well as makes me cringe when I read phrases such as, “it’s Jesus Christ who calls men to priesthood” or “discover if priesthood is your true vocation.”
Does it mean something different by not putting “the” before it?
It just really grinds my gears.
Yes. There is a real difference.
First, however, I think that people who do this simply want to sound more “theological” (i.e., smarter) than they really are. They pick up this progressivist buzz language in order to sound sophisticated.
That said, taken at face value, there is a difference though could be stylistic rather than doctrinal.
In English, “the priesthood” normally means the priesthood as a definite, identifiable sacred order or state: the sacramental priesthood, the ministerial priesthood, the priesthood of Christ shared by ordained men. The article gives it concreteness and institutional weight.
By contrast, “priesthood” without the article treats the word more like an abstract mass noun, like “ministry,” “leadership,” “service,” “discipleship,” or “formation.” Thus:
“Christ calls men to the priesthood”
sounds like a call to a definite sacramental order in the Church.
“Christ calls men to priesthood”
sounds more abstract, professionalized, or vocational-office-like. It can sound as though “priesthood” is a field of service, a lifestyle category, or a career path. What’s worse, it blurs the real difference between those who have the title of “priest”. There are real priests, such as Catholic priests with valid orders, and there are wannabes in ecclesial communities without valid orders.
That is probably why it grates on your ear. The missing “the” subtly de-sacralizes the phrase by making “priesthood” sound less like an ontological sacramental state and more like a ministry-option.
The same thing happens with “Eucharist” and “Church.”
“The Eucharist” usually refers to the Sacrament: the Holy Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence, the sacramental reality instituted by Christ.
“Eucharist” without the article can be legitimate in some theological contexts. But in ordinary diocesan prose it often sounds as though “Eucharist” were an activity or value rather than the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Likewise:
“the Church teaches”
means the visible, historical, hierarchical, apostolic Catholic Church.
“Church teaches” or “being Church”
has a buzzy modern pastoral-register sound. It treats “Church” as a mode of communal identity or experience. It reflects a real shift in ecclesiological tone, from the Church as a definite divine society to “church” as a process, gathering, or communal self-expression. Even a “walking together”!
So, does it always mean something different? Not always, strictly speaking. English permits anarthrous nouns, especially in institutional or abstract usage. One may say “go to school,” “enter ministry,” “serve in government,” “receive Communion,” “study theology.” In that sense, “discern priesthood” can be defended grammatically as elliptical for “discern a vocation to priesthood.”
However, in Catholic theological language, articles often matter because they preserve definiteness. “The priesthood,” “the Eucharist,” “the Church,” “the Mass,” “the sacred liturgy” all point to received realities, given before us, not invented by us.
So, in most diocesan vocation-copy, phrases like “called to priesthood” are probably influenced by modern ecclesial bureaucratese and the progressivist faux-sophisticated echo chamber, yet for the most part not all the writers intend something heterodox. They’re just trying to sound deep.
“Called to the priesthood” is clearer, more Catholic-sounding, more traditional, and more theologically precise.
To win the war you need to own the language.
[Rem acu tetigisti. Another reason, apart from lazy ignorance, that they don’t use Latin.]
“Being Church” and “doing liturgy” make me hit roof.
How right you are, fr. Reader,
Try this: “To win war you need to own language.”
Where yours was clear and hard-hitting, this inspires noone.
O God,
Who bestowed the definite article upon the peoples of the earth,
for the two-fold purpose of clarity and elegance,
grant we pray,
that your Church on earth may re-discover them
and resist the superfluous banalities of our time.
Through DNJC…
Father: with all due respect for your prerogatives, I hope you will consider awarding a second Gold Star of the Day – while in no way diminishing the value of either – to the (obviously) inspired composer of useful orations!
Great question and answer
This also grinds my gears excessively.
Revelation 1:5-7
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us[a] from our sins by his blood, 6 who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever [and ever]. Amen.
Great danger is of confusing people into not distinguishing the ‘priesthood of all believers’ with the Ministerial Priesthood
Suddenly realizing with fresh emphasis how bad my canonical/theological Latin is, it occurs to me to wonder what real, living Latin has done in these cases, given my limited sense of its use of demonstrative pronouns in the absence of definite articles (that handy feature of Greek) – for, this bureaucratic lingo is in that sense of article-absence clunkily ‘Latinistic’ (might someone even attempt this sarcastically?).
“not all the writers intend something heterodox. They’re just trying to sound deep.”
The English poet, the catholic John Dryden, used to turn his verses into Latin to check whether or not they actually said something real rather than just sounded deep.
“What weight of antient witness can prevail
If private reason hold the publick scale?
But, gratious God, how well dost thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring Guide?
Thy throne is darkness in th’ abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight;
O teach me to believe Thee thus conceal’d,
And search no farther than thy self reveal’d;
But her alone for my Directour take
Whom thou hast promis’d never to forsake!
My thoughtless youth was wing’d with vain desires,
My manhood, long misled by wandring fires,
Follow’d false lights; and when their glimps was gone,
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
Such was I, such by nature still I am,
Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame.”
Vera profunditas. Fortasse sacerdotibus quoque oportet discere linguam optimam? Si modo lex quaedam sit…
[Gratias tibi persolvo. De Ioanne Dryden id nesciebam.]
@Venerator Sti Lot
Latin is concrete (as we would expect from the inventors of concrete) and so it assumes the definitive nature of what is being talked about. The indefinite state can be expressed either by using the infinitive or by using an adjective to modify the thing (ulla, any, aliquis, something, quisquis, whatever, etc.) If the possibility for misunderstanding exists (usually because the sentence or statement has quite a few actors involved), the speaker can employ a pronoun to clarify who or what is being referred to.
As a proof, we could turn to secular society and notice that during the covid lockdowns, when the unwashed masses became suspicious of the party line-type comments from the health establishment, there was a shift from being told to trust experts, data, science to being told to trust, believe, obey “The Science” …
THE Mystery of faith…gone from the novus ordo in the Consecration and instead there is a choice of “a mystery of faith’.
I just saw that there is an article on Aleteia entitled : Pope Leo carries Eucharist among 1.2 million people. Not ‘The’ Eucharist…
To TheCavalierHatherly,
Thank you! (- for both comments).
Ye happy Latinists (and Greek scholars)! How many more there were in, say, Tolkien’s generation with confident passive and fluent active knowledge of those tongues (able to follow Dryden’s example), before all sorts of institutions set out to minimize the opportunities of learning them well together in a rigorous tradition.
Wondering how the lines you quote and Dryden’s delightful “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” compare in dates of composition, searching I found 1687 for both “Song” and “The Hind and the Panther” (which I did not recognize).
I’m glad somebody brought up this topic. I also find this irritating. In my own diocese, I hear the same definite article being omitted before the word “cathedral”: The bishop will celebrate Mass at 12 PM at Cathedral. Mind you, it’s a diocese that is very “Novus Ordory” with a very protestant vibe.
@Ave Maria: Re: “Pope Leo carries Eucharist among 1.2 million people. Not ‘The’ Eucharist…”
If that’s the headline of the article, then it’s fine. Journalistic English behaves way different when it comes to headlines, which tend to be written with as few words as possible so as to still enable understanding (although in some cases they can be ambiguous). In the real world, however, nobody speaks that way. But if the above text was part of the body of the article itself, then yeah, I would agree that it’s bad.
It seems to me that the Church no longer speaks with precision, probably because it does not want to. (As Father McTiegue said the other day, if this is what the pope means, why didn’t say it?) This is my explanation.
I think Christine Mohrmann pointed out that the classical Latin we learn (and quickly forget for lack of use) in school is a hierarchical language (is this the right word?) that was developed for use by the government of the empire. It was not commonly spoken (or the commonly spoken Latin was not Classical Latin). Given this purpose, the ability to be precise when using Classical Latin was a development important for the command and control of the Roman Empire.
It follows that Ecclesiastical Latin also developed in a manner that allowed for precision in expressing the truths of the Christian faith. The same might be said for language used in law and science, each field develops its own jargon and the professionals in each particular field must use the form of the language developed for their field in order to be able to write precisely.
Vernacular language does not need such precision because the speakers and listeners know the meanings of otherwise unclear phrases from the context of the conversation.
This all reminds me of an interesting anecdote.
When I was growing up in Virginia an older fellow told me a story about our local delegate in the Virginia general Assembly. The General Assembly employed lawyers to help delegates write proposed legislation in legal language so that the legislation, if passed, would have the desired effect. Our delegate decided he would write a piece of legislation himself whose purpose was to give raises to a few local state employees. It turned out the legislation passed, but unfortunately the way our delegate wrote it, it did not grant raises to the employees, rather it kept them from getting paid at all!