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devil's advocate

 
Dictionary: dev·il's advocate
(dĕv'əlz)
n.
  1. One who argues against a cause or position, not as a committed opponent but simply for the sake of argument or to determine the validity of the cause or position.
  2. Roman Catholic Church. An official appointed to present arguments against a proposed canonization or beatification.

[Translation of Medieval Latin advocātus diabolī, one arguing for the devil's plea against canonizing a saint : Latin advocātus, advocate + Late Latin diabolī, genitive of diabolus, devil.]


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Wordsmith Words: devil's advocate
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(DEV-uhlz AD-vuh-kuht) pronunciation

noun
One who argues against something for the sake of argument, for example, to provoke discussion and subject a plan to thorough examination.

Etymology
From Latin advocatus diaboli (devil's advocate). The Roman Catholic Church used to have a person appointed as a devil's advocate to argue against elevating someone to sainthood. The person arguing for the proposition was known as God's advocate (Latin advocatus dei)

Usage
"A devil's advocate would ask what's wrong with offering a scholarship to, say, an eighth-grader?" — Jerry Tipton; Coaches to Curb Youth Movement; Herald-Leader (Lexington, Kentucky); Jun 15, 2008.


Idioms: devil's advocate
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One who argues against a cause or position either for the sake of argument or to help determine its validity. For example, My role in the campaign is to play devil's advocate to each new policy before it's introduced to the public. This term comes from the Roman Catholic Church, where advocatus diaboli (Latin for "devil's advocate") signifies an official who is appointed to present arguments against a proposed canonization or beatification. It was transferred to wider use in the mid-1700s.


Wikipedia: Devil's advocate
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In common parlance, a devil's advocate is someone who takes a position he or she does not agree with for the sake of argument. This process can be used to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure.

Contents

Origin

During the canonization process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: Promotor Fidei), popularly known as the Devil's Advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), is a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of the candidate.[1] It is his or her job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The Devil's advocate opposes God's advocate (Latin: Advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task is to make the argument in favor of canonization. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate.

The office was established in 1587 during the reign of Pope Sixtus V and reformed by Pope John Paul II in 1983. This reform streamlined the canonization process considerably, helping John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over 1,300 were beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only 98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors.

Such a dramatic increase suggests that the office of the Devil's Advocate had served to reduce the number of canonizations by complicating the process. Some argue that it served a useful role in ensuring that canonizations did not proceed without due care and hence the status of sainthood was not easily achieved. In cases of controversy the Vatican may still seek to informally solicit the testimony of critics of a candidate for canonization. The British born American columnist Christopher Hitchens was famously asked to testify against the beatification of Mother Teresa in 2002, a role he would later humorously describe as being akin to "representing the Evil One, as it were, pro bono".[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Promotor Fidei". Catholic Encyclopedia. New Advent. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12454a.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-01. 
  2. ^ "Less than Miraculous" by Christopher Hitchens, Free Inquiry 24(2), February/March 2004.

External links


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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved.  Read more
Idioms. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Devil's advocate" Read more

 

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