Thursday, April 11, 2013

Church/church: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Thursday, April 11, 2013

Church/church
Catholics routinely refer to their church as the Church, with a capital C. This irritates the members of other churches, but is standard usage. When “Church” stands by itself (that is, not as part of a name like “First Methodist Church”), capitalize it only to mean “Roman Catholic Church.” Note that protestant theologians and other specialists in religion do refer to the whole body of Christians as “the Church,” but this professional usage is not common in ordinary writing.

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