tua culpa
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: tua culpas
Etymology: From the Latin phrase tuā culpā (“through your fault”), ablative case of tua culpa (“your fault, guilt”), used in English by analogy with mea culpa; also compare nostra culpa.
Senses: examples: text: Here, in the desperate plight of so many of our brethren, lies a heavy charge against us. Here there is more than enough reason for our humble ‘mea culpa’ but also for a ‘tua culpa’ addressed to those outside the Church who, as socialists, claim to have, or ought to have, a sense of social responsibility.
ref: 1952 September 19, Hugo Rahner, quotee, “‘Without God, Freedom Is Only A Word’”, in The Catholic Times, volume 1, number 51, Columbus, Oh.: The Catholic Times, Inc., →OCLC, page 2, column 6:
text: And what distinguishes [Stefan] Kanfer's recounting of the last blacklist is its note of intelligent compassion. Kanfer is more interested in the people than politics, in delineating human beings than in location party lines. And unlike so many accounts of the blacklist that I have read, his is not a quest for self-justification, a tua culpa or a J'Accuse.
ref: 1973 September 23, Josh Greenfeld, “Blacklisters, Blacklistees Down Memory Lane”, in Los Angeles Times (Book Review section), Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2, columns 3–4:
text: It is, perhaps, the nature of the great American beast that in the midst of the recent “energy crisis” at least two-thirds of all the media time and space devoted to the “crisis” dealt with flinging “tua culpa’s”—trying to pass the blame.
ref: 1974, Richard M. Laska, “‘The Preceeding^([sic]) Crisis was Brought to You By…’”, in Anton B. Schmalz, editor, Energy: Today’s Choices, Tomorrow’s Opportunities: Essential Dimensions in Thinking for Energy Policy, Washington, D.C.: World Future Society, →OCLC, page 216:
text: There is, of course, a conspiracy to deny his rightness, and Nice Guys Finish Last is a tua culpa as full of lofty complaints as Henry Kissinger before a Congressional committee. Both Henry and Leo are always aghast at the inability of the opposition to see the truth, which is so patiently being told them.
ref: 1975 June 8, Heywood Hale Broun, “Leo [Durocher]’s impassioned account of Leo”, in Chicago Tribune (Book World section), Chicago, Ill., →ISSN, page 3, column 2:
text: The president’s “tua culpa” (you’re at fault) only admitted to being caught, and begrudgingly at that.
ref: 1998 August 26, David Hall, “Forgiving [Bill] Clinton doesn’t mean we have to forget”, in The Sentinel, volume 117, number 255, Carlisle, Pa., →OCLC, page B4, column 3:
text: I conclude that the evidence fails to support the general charge of a hostile learning environment in American law schools and the call for a new regime in legal education. If I am right, perhaps the smugness, tua culpas, breast beating, and self-abasement can stop.
ref: 2001, Dan Subotnik, “The Cult of Hostile Gender Climate: A Male Voice Preaches Diversity to the Choir”, in The University of Chicago Law School Roundtable: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, volume 8, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Law School, →ISSN, page 40:
text: One of the many dangers threatening us today is the widespread tendency to put the blame on others. Christopher West resorts to this strategy in his book, Good News About Sex and Marriage, […] Here, West falls into a contemporary trap. The tua culpa [you are at fault] has replaced the mea culpa [I am at fault]. To assume that those who fall into sexual sin necessarily would have led a pure life had one’s parents or teachers been more “open” in their approach to the intimate sphere, is pure illusion.
ref: 2013, Alice von Hildebrand, “[The Nature of the Intimate Sphere] Tua Culpa or Mea Culpa?”, in The Dark Night of the Body: Why Reverence Comes First in Intimate Relations, Fort Collins, Colo.: Roman Catholic Books, →ISBN, pages 13–14:
glosses: An instance of blaming someone (other than oneself).