"Father Brown"

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 03:28 PM 3/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>>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?

Actually, I'd prefer Mr. or Ms.--but that's my non-pa/maternalistic bent.