More than words
Nothing can confuse communication as much as words. One can choose them as carefully as possible, shooting for pin-point accuracy in its application and investing subtle nuances in its usage — and there will be those who will not only misunderstand a delicately wrought phrase, but denounce the writer for it.
For a journalist this is an occupational hazard. All the writer can do is string together words that convey accurately — and hopefully with some elegance — what is supposed to be communicated. A writer may labour for inordinate lengths of time over a single word or passage. But even when the objective of concise clarity is accomplished, even one word can bring down the whole edifice of sparkling prose.
A recent experience demonstrates what I mean. In relation to the devotions to St Faustina’s Divine Mercy revelations and Marian apparitions, I had used the word “cult”. A reader sent me an e-mail, just signed “irritated jhb west”, in response to my “blasphemous editorial drivel”, setting me right about the threats to my salvation and my disobedience to Church and God in terms that confirmed the sentiment behind the anonymous signature.
My use of the word “cult” apparently showed my “disrespect, disregard and indifference to the Sovereign God and the entire heavenly court”. That must come as bad news to the Catholic Church, which for many centuries has used the word “cult” (or cultus) to describe particular types of veneration and devotions.
Of course, in common usage, that specific understanding of the word “cult” has been usurped by a definition that typically evokes notions of weirdly humming, brainwashed maniacs in bizarre sects who will eventually commit mass suicide at the signal of their crazy-eyed leader.
Perhaps those of us who apply the word in its accurate usage within the Catholic context should be more circumspect, keeping in mind that the concepts of the Church sometimes differ markedly from those of the secular world. It certainly is not desirable to plant into the reader’s mind a mental image of Divine Mercy devotees as weirdly humming, brainwashed fanatics belonging to bizarre suicidal sects.
Alas, there aren’t many suitably precise synonyms for the word “cult” in relation to Catholic venerations and devotions.
Recently I had cause myself to consider shooting off letters about misapplied designations, perhaps signed “irritated ctn nw”, to the organisers of an event headlined “Cape Town Carnival” — which was scheduled for March 20, more than halfway through Lent.
Catholics, especially those from countries where Catholicism informs the local culture, will know that the word “carnival” refers to the celebrations preceding the penitential season of Lent. A carnival therefore takes place before Ash Wednesday in February, and never in late March.
The etymology of the word is carne vale, Latin for “farewell to meat”. So unless the organisers of the Cape Town festival meant to propose that their event should be followed by some kind of fast, the title they gave it betrayed a lamentable ignorance — much as does the nomenclature of “Mardi Gras” to promote any event not taking place on Shrove Tuesday.
Or perhaps the act of calling something a carnival when it patently is not a carnival simply shows how words lose or change their meaning. For example, when you are in a joyful mood, you probably would not describe yourself as being gay, as people just a couple of generations ago might have done. Or if you should time-travel to the 11th century, and people there call you “silly”, they are just saying that you are blessed; but if they call you “nice”, they think you are stupid (especially if you suggest having a carnival in March).
There were times when boys were girls. In fact, all children were girls, regardless of their gender. We might not think of our politicians as particularly sophisticated, unless we apply the term in its original definition: corrupt. And nuns used to be buxom long before Page 3 girls were. The word once meant “obedient”; only later did it come to signify a woman’s generous endowment of the mammary gland.
Language, and the way we understand it, is changing all the time. There are many people now who use the word “bad” to describe something admirable, even as they use it also to describe something deplorable. Future generations of children might well be puzzled by the story of the huffing and puffing Big, Bad Wolf, wondering exactly what was so good about him.
So with all that in mind, what should the Catholic Church call a cult?
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