Opinion: At least he didn’t call him “Pal”

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God knows that George W. Bush mangles the English language. So does David Letterman, who mines Bush gaffes for his “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches” feature. So, presumably, do Pope Benedict XVI and his entourage.

That’s why I’m skeptical about news reports that Bush “drew gasps” at the Vatican for addressing the pope as “Sir” instead of “Your Holiness.” The vaunted Vatican diplomatic corps must have prepared the pontiff for the president’s problems with protocol. And some of the American monsignori are probably Letterman fans.

There are plenty of reasons to beat up on Bush, but dissing the pope isn’t one of them. Besides, Bush is in good company. The great Catholic poet Gerald Manley Hopkins addresses God himself as “sir” in his poem “Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord.” And “Sir” is a title of respect derived from “sire.”

More to the point, since Vatican II it has become more acceptable to dispense with medieval courtesy titles in addressing the clergy, though traditionalist Catholics bewail this practice. At my previous newspaper, the non-Catholic editor consulted me about how he should refer to the Catholic bishop of Pittsburgh. I assured him that “Bishop” was appropriate and that he needn’t address the bishop as “Your Excellency” (or kiss his ring).

It wasn’t always thus. I remember, as a Catholic schoolboy, being startled when Ralph McGill, the famous editor of the Atlanta Constitution, addressed a Catholic bishop as “Sir” on a Sunday TV talk show. And I recall the trouble visited on one of my classmates at our Christian Brothers school when he said “Yes, sir” to Brother Michael, our typing teacher. “I am not a sir,” the good Brother thundered. But that was 1965.

The pope has been called worse things than “Sir.” I suspect he reacted to Bush’s “gaffe” with papal indulgence.