Was taking a look at some of the NY Times slideshows of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to New York today. One of the things that struck me stylistically while doing so (in addition to the red shoes he wore with the white double-breasted overcoat during his visit to Ground Zero) was the following sentence:
- “The pope and Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of New York, walked on the ramp.”
A caption on this photo, the capitalization decision struck me as hierarchically backwards: it seems funny that while “pope” was not capped, “Cardinal” was. To me, one would logically capitalize Pope, the head of the Church, if one has decided to do so for those whom he appoints to office, the Cardinals. I would think that the NYT editorial style calls for such consistency. In any case, it sounds like a good excuse to have a fact-finding look in the Chicago Manual of Style.
April 21, 2008 at 7:40 am
Dan – Good point. I can find no rhyme nor reason to much of the capitalization that relates to Church (ah, the capital “C”!). Should a deacon be a Deacon or a deacon? Is it Mass or mass? Let me know what you think!
April 24, 2008 at 8:47 am
Actually, this style is close to AACR2 though the cataloging rules make an exception for folks like the Pope. In Appendix A, we have:
James Callaghan; the prime minister
Gen. Bernard A Rogers; the general
W. Carson Ryan; the professor
Perhaps AACR borrowed this from Chicago (see 0.11) or some other style manual.
Gosh, I sure am glad this is a stylish world we live in, despite the red shoes with white gown (tell Laura Bush).
April 26, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Well, I don’t have AACR2 on hand at the moment, but Chicago (8.29, Names and Terms > Titles and Offices > Religious Titles) gives us the following:
“the pope; Pope John Paul II; the papacy; papal”
and
“the cardinal; Francis Cardinal George or, less formally, Cardinal George; the sacred college of cardinals”
…justifying the style of the “title” pope vs. the “name” Cardinal Egan.