nostra culpa

1. uncommonOur fault, due to our error; we are to blame.

   […] ‘vostra culpa’ – ‘nostra culpa’ – that we did not see what was right in front […]

   2002 March 12, David L. Wright, “It is a rare gift”, in The Western Star, Corner Brook, Nfld., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 6

   2 more examples

   The exponents of guilt routinely exempt themselves from their accusations; they do not speak of mea culpa but of nostra culpa, or rather vestra culpa.

   1984, P[eter] T[homas] Bauer, “Ecclesiastical Economics: Envy Legitimized”, in Reality and Rhetoric: Studies in the Economics of Development, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 85

   The process of proliferation of attitudes characterized by “outer directed-ness” has been associated with the parallel process of the wilting of individual guilt—the core of Christianity. […] Mea culpa has been progressively replaced first by vostra culpa that, some time after World War II, gave way to nostra culpa. Mea culpa has been marginalized and has progressively gone out of fashion.

   2005, Stan Haski, “Consequences of New Freedom”, in The Arrogance of Distance: Moral Hazard and the Rise and Decay of Individual Freedom and Responsibility, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN

plural nostra culpas

1. uncommonAn instance of nostra culpa; an apology on behalf of a group.

   2 more examples

   Ours is one of the “leftist and liberal Catholic publications (who) beat their breasts with an editorial nostra culpa whenever Red gains ate chalked up anywhere in the world.” She [Gretta Palmer] inserted a parenthetical remark in the above sentence: “(or, staring fiercely at the Hierarchy, an even more vigorous vestra culpa)”—sentiments which I decline to accept as mine.

   1951 April, Ed Willock, “Reform and Conversion”, in Edward Willock, Carol Jackson, editors, Integrity, volume 5, number 7, New York, N.Y.: Integrity Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 31

   What we need as much as anything now are mea culpas from politicians who devised and facilitated this fiasco, and journalists who justified and excused it. […] I don't mean vostra culpas, nostra culpas, or even sua culpas, of the sort that the Richard Cohens and Tom Friedmans have tried to fob off on the world, […] I mean a frank admission of fault from everybody who bears some of the blame, offered with the humility owed by those who have harmed their country.

   2006 May 28, smintheus [pseudonym], “Memorial Day, a time for mea culpas”, in Daily Kos, Berkeley, Calif.: Kos Media, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 Feb 2026