In acknowledging protocol in social functions, which comes first, religious?retired members of judiciary?
Clergy have no official protocol ranking The ranking of active and retire members of the Judiciary depends on the court on which they sat. The ranking of military officers is according to military protocol, although some of that intersects with civilian protocol if they are also Presidential appointees such as Sec Def, Members of the Joint Chiefs, or retired as such, etc. Retired politicians, Ambassadors, etc.all hold various protocol rankings depending on their highest previous ranking and the dates of service, usually their date of swearing in to the highest former rank. Academics hold no protocol ranking as such unless they hold some other rank from another field, although you would obviously give deference to, say, the President of a university above a professor. There are several good texts available which I have used professionally but there are always questions that you struggle with. Mostly they come up with seated dinners. The highest ranking people are usually the easiest to
