"Father Brown"

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 02:32 PM 3/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 3/19/2003 1:50:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>flanigan at OHIOU.EDU writes:
>
> > >And indeed, this is what my cousin-in-law Merrie has been called:
> > >Father (she has served as a chaplin in hospitals and prisons).
> > >
> > >Barbara
> >
> > Might she also be called Pastor Brown?  It's simple, neutral, and used as a
> > generic lower-case job label by many religious communities, including
> > Catholics.  I'm surprised that Merrie would accept "Father," even if it is
> > "proper"!
> >
>
>No more surprising than that a Jewish chaplain would accept being addressed
>as "Padre", that being the usual form of address from a soldier to a
>chaplain.  And now that the Armed Forces have Muslim chaplains, we have quite
>a bit of religious job labels to mullah over.

I don't mind either Father or Padre or Papa or Pop for a male religious
figure, whatever the religion--but my feminist hackles rise when a female
is addressed by one of these terms!  Mother or Madre won't do either. We
will indeed need a gender-neutral address form, as Joanne suggests.