Requiescat in Pace
Some time ago a writer in The Orange Standard newspaper voiced concern that many Protestants now use the phrase 'RIP' to offer sympathy when a person has died.
The phrase is short for Requiescat in pace, May he/she rest in peace. It is a prayer that the deceased person may come to eternal happiness.
But using it, Wallace Thompson believed, was "un-Protestant, un-biblical and a superstition connected to Catholicism." It also illustrated "the spiritual confusion within Protestant circles”.
Thompson, an Evangelical, pointed out that Protestants "believe that... when death comes a person either goes to be with Christ for all eternity, or into hell."
In the Catholic Herald, Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith recalled that on the morning after Princess Diana died, a Sunday morning, "many in the media criticised the fact that no prayer was said for her in Craithie Church, which the Royal family attends at Balmoral."
This, however, "overlooked the fact that the Church of Scotland has no prayers for the dead and does not believe in them."
In fact, praying for the dead that they may be released from their sins and journey to God is a Catholic practice going back to the Church's earliest days, a practice that is rooted in the Bible (2 Maccabees 12:42-45).
Prayer for the dead is closely connected with belief in Purgatory and purification, a doctrine which Protestants rejected at the Reformation.
For Fr Lucie-Smith when people use the tag RIP on social media today "it is not because they have turned Catholic or are about to turn Catholic."
Rather, it is more likely a sign of the decline of religious knowledge and practice, which should concern both Catholics and Protestants.
Requiescat in pace is now largely "a Catholic term that has been divorced for most people from its living roots," he said.
On social media, "it does not indicate any faith in the afterlife, or belief in Purgatory, nor is it, usually, in any sense a prayer made on behalf of the deceased."
So the Orange newspaper, in noting the way the phrase is misused at present, is actually highlighting an important task for Catholics.
"We need to catechise and evangelise," said the priest, so that when people do write the letters RIP on social media they will know what they mean.
"And perhaps utter the prayer they stand for with their lips and in their hearts."
The phrase is short for Requiescat in pace, May he/she rest in peace. It is a prayer that the deceased person may come to eternal happiness.
But using it, Wallace Thompson believed, was "un-Protestant, un-biblical and a superstition connected to Catholicism." It also illustrated "the spiritual confusion within Protestant circles”.
Thompson, an Evangelical, pointed out that Protestants "believe that... when death comes a person either goes to be with Christ for all eternity, or into hell."
In the Catholic Herald, Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith recalled that on the morning after Princess Diana died, a Sunday morning, "many in the media criticised the fact that no prayer was said for her in Craithie Church, which the Royal family attends at Balmoral."
This, however, "overlooked the fact that the Church of Scotland has no prayers for the dead and does not believe in them."
In fact, praying for the dead that they may be released from their sins and journey to God is a Catholic practice going back to the Church's earliest days, a practice that is rooted in the Bible (2 Maccabees 12:42-45).
Prayer for the dead is closely connected with belief in Purgatory and purification, a doctrine which Protestants rejected at the Reformation.
For Fr Lucie-Smith when people use the tag RIP on social media today "it is not because they have turned Catholic or are about to turn Catholic."
Rather, it is more likely a sign of the decline of religious knowledge and practice, which should concern both Catholics and Protestants.
Requiescat in pace is now largely "a Catholic term that has been divorced for most people from its living roots," he said.
On social media, "it does not indicate any faith in the afterlife, or belief in Purgatory, nor is it, usually, in any sense a prayer made on behalf of the deceased."
So the Orange newspaper, in noting the way the phrase is misused at present, is actually highlighting an important task for Catholics.
"We need to catechise and evangelise," said the priest, so that when people do write the letters RIP on social media they will know what they mean.
"And perhaps utter the prayer they stand for with their lips and in their hearts."
