"Father Brown"

[Laurence Horn]

>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.

Parent?