1359 words, 7 minute read.
If reading the title of this blog post makes you think: “What on Earth?!”, please, do bear with me. What I would like to reflect on here is an aspect of the McCarrick report that emerged gradually for me as I was reading its 449 pages and 156K words.1
Before turning to the report, let’s consider the following thought experiment where you and I work at the same company. Both of us are managers at the same level, as is a third person with whom we have both interacted over many years and who has gone through the same career progression as us. Let’s call him “Ted Carrick” for simplicity’s sake.
One day you then hear rumours and third person accounts of Ted having embezzled a sizeable sum of money and you are not sure what to make of them. So, you come to me and ask:
Scenario 1:
You: “Have you heard the rumours about Ted embezzling money?”
I: “Yes, I have. Bill told me. Not sure what to make of them. Susan said that Jeff told her he saw Ted do it.”
Scenario 2:
You: “Has Your Eminence heard the rumours about His Eminence Ted Carrick, Senior Department Manager, embezzling money?”
I: “Yes, I have, Your Eminence. An employee told me. Not sure what to make of them. Another employee – a woman – said that a contractor told her that he saw His Eminence Ted Carrick, Senior Department Manager, do it.”
In which scenario do you think you would be more likely to follow up on these rumours? You may think that you would do the same thing in both cases, or even that Scenario 2 would make you more suspicious, and you may be right. However – and this is harder to imagine – what would the effect on you be if you and I, and “Ted” always communicated in the manner of the second scenario? Could it be that addressing each other with such excessive and exalting formality would skew our view of “us” versus those who are not “Eminences” like ourselves?
Sociology of Language research certainly suggests so and points to a relationship between forms of address and two dimensions: power and solidarity.2 The greater the formality the greater the degree of subordination, while solidarity favours informality.
Before turning to the use of modes of address in the McCarrick report, let me just add this famous and painful example of how modes of address are inextricably tied to modes of thought and action. It is an exchange between the Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint and a police officer who stopped his car:3
“What’s your name boy?” the policeman asked.
“Doctor Poussaint. I am a physician.”
“What’s your first name, boy?”
… As my heart palpitated, I muttered in profound humiliation:
“Alvin.”
The race of both speakers goes without saying …
With that context in place, let’s turn to the McCarrick report. Reading it, I was struck by the manner in which various Bishops, Cardinals and Papal Nuncios addressed each other, noting that the following excerpts are not public speeches or official documents, but highly private communication that their authors would have assumed would never see the light of day:
“I am not sure whether Your Excellency knows that over the past few months two Anonymous letters have been circulated among the cardinals and several bishops attacking my reputation.”
“I felt it only proper that I would share this with Your Excellency.”
“Let me assure Your Excellency that I have known Archbishop McCarrick for many years.”
“Your Eminence, my reason for writing this is to protect the Church.”
“Your Excellency, As you have requested I relate here what has been brought to my attention concerning a good friend and a devoted servant of our Holy Father, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Theodore McCarrick.”
“Although I have forewarned neither, Your Excellency might wish to consult with His Excellency, the Most Reverend James McHugh […]”
“With deep regret for having to provide the above at the request of Your Excellency, and writing very painfully about a personal friend of extraordinary ability, I nonetheless submit the above in conscience. I am sure that Your Excellency will be kind enough to advise me if this letter meets your needs, or if you would consider it inadequate as written, in which case I would try to improve upon it and to provide whatever other information you may desire.”
“Unfortunately, the reading of the document and its annexes leaves a painful, quite negative, impression regarding the moral behavior that His Excellency McCarrick seems to have had.”
“I write on a matter of the greatest sensitivity and highest confidentiality in which I am duty bound to ask Your Excellency’s assistance, coram Domino and solely for the good of the Church.”
“Your Excellency will have my sincere and continuing prayers as you seek to serve the Church in truth and justice. If Your Excellency wishes to talk to me personally, I will be available at Your Excellency’s convenience.”
“[…] I feel the duty to transmit this news to Your Eminence, in consideration of the fact that the Congregation for Bishops, in the persons of the Most Eminent Card. Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect emeritus, and of the Most Eminent Card. Marc Ouellet, current Prefect, has repeatedly given instructions […]”
“Furthermore, I have the honor to transmit to your Eminence a copy of the letter dated June 16, 2008 sent by my predecessor to the then Cardinal Secretary of State regarding the relationship of the cardinal with the Roman Curia.”
It is worth stating again that the above – which are 12 from among the 117 instances of the use of “Your Eminence” or “Your Excellency” in the text – is not how Bishops, Cardinals and Papal Nuncios address each other in public, but how they write to each other in private. This is how they write to each other when no one else is watching. I have also, deliberately, omitted stating who is writing to whom in these examples, since the tone and level of formality is uniform across all of the communication made public in the McCarrick report. This is not a matter of some churchmen overdoing it with politeness and formality – this is the way they talk among themselves.
There is a final flourish to note here, which in this report is particular to Mr. McCarrick and which is his reference to brotherhood (among Eminences and Excellencies) when closing some of his letters:
“Grateful for your attention to this request, I am Fraternally,
s/ Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick Archbishop Emeritus of Washington”
“With gratitude for your patience in reading this letter[.] Fraternally
+Theodore McCarrick”
“Your devoted brother in Christ, +Ted
Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick Archbishop Emeritus of Washington”
Formality and modes of address weren’t features of the McCarrick report that immediately jumped out at me – the abuse itself and the distorted sense of what constitutes scandal (that I wrote about before) towered far above the point I am making here. However, the sense of unease about the language used among Bishops, Cardinals and Papal Nuncios continued to trouble me and I think I now know why.
I believe it boils down to the following question: “Is this how the apostles spoke among themselves, or how they would speak among themselves today?” Or, to put it differently: “If I didn’t know otherwise, could I deduce that I am reading the words of the successors of the fishers of men, or would I think that this is the sham formality of an amateur historical society reenacting the manners of Baroque courtiers?”
The words we use matter. Addressing someone as “Doctor Poussaint”, or “Alvin” or “boy” already comes with a whole set of choices, even before anything else is said or done.
1 Do take a look at a previous blog post here for links to overviews of the McCarrick report and a take on how “scandal” is spoken about in the material covered by the report.
2 Brown, R. and Gilman, A. 1960. The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity. In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.), Style in Language, 253-276. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
3 Alvin Poussaint, “A Negro Psychiatrist Explains the Negro Psyche,” New York Times Magazine, 20 August 1967, p. 52.
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