Some time back, my wife was attending Monday devotions in which the rosary is said. Throughout the rosary she referred to the Holy Ghost while the priest and others referred to the Holy Spirit.

Anyway, after the devotions were over the priest came over to my wife and asked her not to be using the term Holy Ghost out loud and to follow the example of the priest at the altar and the reply from the congregation.

My wife replied she was reared referring the Holy Ghost and would remain calling Him the Holy Ghost. The priest said he was a man of the 60s (a Vatican II victim) and it was the Holy Spirit for him.

Needless to say this incident was debated among a few friends. The outcome was that this is perhaps one of the more subtle moves towards the one world religion that is ahead of us. You see the Holy Ghost is one distinct person of the Holy Trinity, whereas the Holy Spirit can mean anything. Did you know the Holy Spirit is referred to four times in the Quran, a religion that do not believe in the Trinity God of Catholics. Their Holy Spirit is the Angel Gabrial who we know is not God.

In the Middle Ages, the title “Holy Spirit” was used to describe or pertain to God's Spirit or the Spirit of the Lord, whereas “Holy Ghost” was used to describe the third person in the Holy Trinity.

For me I will not use the term Holy Spirit as I consider it the modernising of the Holy Ghost in order to be able to unite the Trinity with the god of pagans. I, and needless to say my wife, will stick to our pre-Vatican II Holy Ghost and they can have their Holy Spirit.

Just thought I would mention this for discussion.

Holy Ghost.  Holy Spirit came more to be said at Vatican II.  It is explained well on www.traditio.com  Go to library.

I use "Holy Ghost" in prayer and "Holy Spirit" in theological discourse, teaching, and so on.

Storm in a teacup!

There are numerous threads on this. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Guess which one Holy Ghost came from? The German.

Strictly speaking, not really. The phrase has been native English since the Anglo-Saxons drove the Brythonic Celts into Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, and the sea. The phrase used by Bede, if I recall aright, is "Hālga Gāst" or "Hālig Gāst."

Anglo-Saxon—Old English, as it is also called—is a member of the Germanic language family, but at the time it was being spoken, the ancestral equivalent of modern German was, earlier, Old Frisian or Old Saxon and, later, Old High German. In short, the earliest form of a language called English slightly antedates the earliest form of a language called German.

Thus, "Holy Ghost" is not an import. It has been a term native to English from the beginnings of the language. In Chaucer's dialect, now called Middle English, the form was usually "hooly goost," but probably half a dozen other forms also appear in print.

"Holy Spirit" became the standard thanks to V2. It is one of those things that changed for the sake of change. Same as "You" and "Your" replaced "Thee" and "Thine," same as the last book of the Bible is now more often referred to as "the book of Revelation" which replaced the "Apocalypse" etc., and so on.

All changed for the sake of change, all part of the revolution, designed to add to the confusion of the times while helping to promote the idea that, "only the externals changed, all things essential to the Mass and faith remained".

Do these things above really have a different meaning? No, they all say the same thing, only in terms and a language approved and promoted through the new "church of the New Advent."            

I actually have a personal preference for Spirit ...

1) because it's more Latinate, and I'm more inclined to the Latin

2) Ghost has picked up some unwanted connotations in recent decades, as in Casper the Friendly ...

but either one is OK and valid.

I knew of one person who doubted his kids' Baptism because the priest used Holy Spirit instead of Holy Ghost.  That's nonsense.

To Matthew's point, however, if I do use Holy Spirit among Traditional Catholics, I immediately become suspect of Modernism, so I tend to use Holy Ghost among Traditional Catholics.  Most of the time when I pray the Rosary on my own, however, I just say it in Latin, so it's a non-issue for me.

Thanks for the correction. I corrected my post.

Lucky you Matthew, we're stuck with our mistakes.