PARISH BULLETIN: MORAL ISSUES
The Language of Civility

Civility and filial respect help us to take our places in our communities.

by James F. Keenan

When I was teaching at Fordham University, shortly after finishing my doctorate in Rome, I occasionally gave a public lecture, and my Dad would attend. He was my greatest fan. But he noticed I did something that was rude. In the middle of a questioner's comment, I would begin responding. "Son, let them finish their question." "But I know what they're asking." "Son, let them finish their question." "Yes, Dad, but I know what they are going to say." "Son, then, humor them and let them finish. It's rude." I was surprised at how obtuse I was. I was not simply being rude; beneath my interruptions were an arrogance and a lack of humility. My Dad was teaching me to be humble and civil, to recognize my place in the conversation.

Most of us learn at home how to be civil. Our parents and elders help form us to be civilized, to partake in our culture as worthy members. They want to be sure that as we negotiate the world around us, we do it with manners. Our elders understand too that we are a reflection of them and so our public conduct reflects on them and on how well they raised us. For this reason, nothing is more insulting than hearing someone comment, "Didn't your parents teach you any manners?" The question is meant to suggest that an uncivil child comes from an uncivil family.

Not surprisingly, the custom of manners derives, I think, from our understanding of the fourth commandment. There we come to understand the virtues of filial respect and solidarity. Filial respect teaches us to regard our elders with a deference due them that affirms at the same time their place in the community and our own. Solidarity marks us as related to our peers, friends, and colleagues. These two virtues help us to understand and maintain our place in the community. In this sense, they are deeply related to the virtue of humility, which is virtue of knowing one's place in God's world.

For the most part language is a key mode for expressing manners and civility. I learned this when I began studying Italian to prepare for my graduate studies in Rome. One day our teacher explained to us the art of making a purchase in Rome. When you go into a shop in Rome and you want to buy something, say chewing gum, you don’t say, "chewing gum," nor is "chewing gum, please" adequate. She explained, when you first walk in and the owner might be walking around or looking for something, you say nothing until the owner is ready to greet you, and then you greet the owner. "You are after all," she explained, "in the owner's store." "Then, do I ask for the chewing gum?" "No, then, after you receive the owner's greeting, you ask, "How are you?" "What if I don’t know the owner?" "You can always ask anyone, 'How are you?' It's a question of concern, even for the stranger." "Then, do I ask for the chewing gum?" "Well, yes, but remember you just asked how the owner is doing… she or he might take some time telling you how they are." "OK, after I get the whole health and economic history of the owner, I ask for chewing gum?" "Well yes, but then you must ask for it in the subjunctive?" "You mean I don’t, say, 'chewing gum, please,’ but rather, 'Could I please have a pack of chewing gum?’" Exactly!"

In learning another language, I learned how every language has its practices of civility. I began to realize that ritual and language work together in the most ordinary situations, trying to promote filial respect, humility, and solidarity. In many continental European languages—German, French, Spanish, and Italian, for instance—there are different conjugations to distinguish between the formal and the informal. Formal verb forms and pronouns need to be learned so as to speak with persons whose age, rank, seniority, or social position commands formal respect. To speak informally to a professor, a police officer, an elder, a priest, or a physician is not only rude, it is uncivil. Similarly, one uses the formal with one's colleagues, maintaining, if you will, a professional status. One can only use the informal when a certain level of familiarity exists. Parents and children use the informal, and wonderfully, in the liturgy, the informal is always used in addressing God, such is our intimacy with God. These language practices are meant to develop in us a conscious awareness of how we are related to one another.

In English we have conventions that teach us the same lessons. We have formal and informal ways of speaking. If we are lost and need to ask for directions, we don't shout to a stranger, "Where's Lincoln Street?" Rather, we approach them saying, "Excuse me, but I'm lost; would (that lovely subjunctive) you know where Lincoln Street is?" When we approach an elder whom we don’t know, but with whom we must still speak, we normally begin by saying "Excuse me, sir." Just as manners call for filial respect through formality, similarly manners call for solidarity through informality. So when we enter a restaurant and our host asks how we are, we reciprocate with a similar question about their welfare. Meeting strangers and elders requires a degree of mutual respect and civility.

These are not private, but rather social practices. For instance, here at Boston College, I was surprised, when I first arrived, at how people wait and hold the door for someone. It is a very social act. It is not simply occasional that someone holds the door for the person from behind, it's expected. It creates on our campus an inner disposition, that no matter where I'm going, I should be mindful of the person following behind me. I should make their passage smooth, just as the person preceding me has done for me. Similarly, if someone filing up the stairs inadvertently runs into another, the words, "I'm sorry," or "Excuse me, please" roll right off the person’s lips.

These are not superficial practices; they are part of the interiorized manners of a school community. For this reason, whenever intolerant words are spoken, they are summarily addressed by the university community. These admonishing practices similarly promote respect and solidarity.

Manners can never be used superficially, for indeed, whenever they are, we recognize immediately their hypocrisy. True manners are not superficial cover-ups of disdain. Rather, they are practices that are meant to train us in interpersonal exchanges and discourse. They are essential for the well-being of community.

In civil society and in the church I think we could do more to promote manners. Last Sunday, for instance, a fellow-priest told me that after the period of reflection following his homily, he mistakenly began the prayers of the faithful. From the midst of the congregation, a man shouted out "The Creed, say the Creed." The comment was filled with and illustrative of profound dissonance.

As in this instance, usually when we suspend manners, it comes from a sense of superiority. When we believe that we are righteous, or "smarter," or "more orthodox," we begin to think that we are not required to treat another with civility, respect, and humility. This, of course, is why my Dad wanted me to hear out my questioners. He wanted me to drop my sense of superiority and enter into the community rather than to stand over and above it. Manners help us to be humble and respectful. We need them because we do have a tendency toward superiority, we need to check and discipline ourselves with these practices.

Still we deceive ourselves, as when we don’t hold the door for the person behind us because our time is more important. Worse, we can believe that we should dismiss or deride the position of another, without having taken the time to read and understand the position in the first place. Feeling righteous, we believe we do not need the discipline of civility.

My friend John O'Malley begins the liturgy reminding us that the Lord loves the company of sinners. Real sinners know they need to be respectful, humble, and civil; real sinners know communally that they are called around the Eucharistic table. Manners promote within the community of sinners the virtue of mutual respect.
Years ago I edited a book with a Mennonite minister, Joseph Kotva, entitled, Practice What You Preach: Virtues, Ethics, and Power in the Lives of Pastoral Ministers and Their Congregation (Sheed and Ward, 1999). Vigen Guroian, the moral theologian, contributed an essay illustrating the lack of manners among hierarchy and clergy in his Armenian church. His words, I think, are fitting to close on, leading us to see how integral the language of civility is.

Manners and morals in the church are not merely matters of decorum and externals of behavior. Their breakdown affects the evangelical witness and mission of the church… Where fundamental beliefs and matters of belonging are at issue, passions are bound to run high. Those whom the church invests with solemn responsibility to transmit and sometimes defend Christian beliefs and identity should receive a training that cultivates virtues of humility, temperance, and forbearance.

He adds, "But this type of training is desperately lacking at present in the preparation of Armenian clergy." ("Doctrine and Ecclesiastical Authority," 262). His admonition to the Armenian clergy is one we can, I think, take upon ourselves.

The Rev. James F. Keenan, S.J., is professor of theological ethics at Boston College, Massachusetts.