A Vestment Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter mwscott
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

mwscott

Guest
(Really its an “under-vestment” question…)

Msgr. Gänswein (the pope’s personal secretary) is a Prelate of His Holiness. Thus, his ecclesial dress is a black cassock with red trim and a purple sash. His choir dress is a purple cassock. I assume then that he would wear a purple cassock under his alb when vesting for Mass. However, in this picture it seems that the color under his alb (seen through the lace) is red.

I seem to remember reading once about inserts in the sleeves of an alb but I was reading the article for a specific reason and I must have ignored it and not researched it further.

Why is he wearing red and is this his cassock I see or something else?
 
Does it matter?

There are better things to be concerned about than clerical haberdashery.

And cassocks are not vestments, but basically ecclesiastical underwear.
 
Albs can have colored silk lining in their sleeves. And actually, based on the fact that the alb sleeves in that photo are made of lace like that, I’d say odds are you’re seeing inserts there.

In addition, the cuffs on purple choir cassocks are typically red, so if he is actually wearing his (which is hard to confirm in this case), that would explain it as well.
 
mwscott said:
(Really its an “under-vestment” question…)

Msgr. Gänswein (the pope’s personal secretary) is a Prelate of His Holiness. Thus, his ecclesial dress is a black cassock with red trim and a purple sash. His choir dress is a purple cassock. I assume then that he would wear a purple cassock under his alb when vesting for Mass. However, in this picture it seems that the color under his alb (seen through the lace) is red.

I seem to remember reading once about inserts in the sleeves of an alb but I was reading the article for a specific reason and I must have ignored it and not researched it further.

Why is he wearing red and is this his cassock I see or something else?
Click to expand...
Be very careful. Depending on the optics, lighting, camera angles, secondary treatments of the photograph plus variations in material dying and fading, Roman purple/fuchsia can appear to be red – even scarlet. The trim on Roman purple/fuschia cassocks is properly amaranth (reddish-rose.) See if you can even distinguish that from that main body color in your photograph.

Some ordinaries such as cardinals have the distinction of having their cassock sleeves and fascia (band cincture) made of scarlet watered silk (also referred to as moiré.)
 
bpbasilphx said:
Does it matter?

There are better things to be concerned about than clerical haberdashery.

And cassocks are not vestments, but basically ecclesiastical underwear.
Click to expand...
Cassocks, particularly choir cassocks are certainly NOT “ecclesiastical underwear.”
 
bpbasilphx said:
Does it matter?

There are better things to be concerned about than clerical haberdashery.

And cassocks are not vestments, but basically ecclesiastical underwear.
Click to expand...
First of all, I said at the beginning of my post that this was really an “under-vestment” question to account for that very concern. Of course, since I was also asking about the possibility of this being a part of the alb it could be considered a vestment question. Secondly, the cassock is most certainly not ecclesiastical underware considering it is worn as the outermost layer of ecclesiastical dress. It could of course be considered (rather crudely) vestment underware but I already hinted at that in my original post.

Now, as far as your second concern. I figured that because this was a forum dedicated to liturgy that I would be safe asking a question about liturgical dress. I did not suggest that my question was of ultimate importance. I simply was curious, and because I could not find the answer in all the usual places, I asked here. Now, if you feel that this is not an appropriate place to ask this question where is a better one? Also, if you think that this question is so terribly trivial then why does the Church continue to uphold the usage of colored dress?
 
I’m just impressed that the word “haberdashery” was used properly.
 
mwscott said:
(Really its an “under-vestment” question…)

Msgr. Gänswein (the pope’s personal secretary) is a Prelate of His Holiness. Thus, his ecclesial dress is a black cassock with red trim and a purple sash. His choir dress is a purple cassock. I assume then that he would wear a purple cassock under his alb when vesting for Mass. However, in this picture it seems that the color under his alb (seen through the lace) is red.

I seem to remember reading once about inserts in the sleeves of an alb but I was reading the article for a specific reason and I must have ignored it and not researched it further.

Why is he wearing red and is this his cassock I see or something else?
Click to expand...
If you look carefully at the picture, you will see the red appears under the lace showing on his right arm. When you look at the left arm what you see inside the alb sleeve is a little black, which I am sure is the sleeve of his cassock. Therefore, the alb has an underlay of red behind the lace and Msgr. Ganswein is wearing his black cassock under the alb.
 
I seem to recall that Monsignori are entitled to wear an alb with red trim to signify their priestly rank as Monsignor as well as the status of the prelature.
 
 
MusicMan said:
I seem to recall that Monsignori are entitled to wear an alb with red trim to signify their priestly rank as Monsignor as well as the status of the prelature.
Click to expand...
My best friend is a chaplain to His Holiness. He has an alb similar to Msgr. Ganswein’s and has worn it on high holy days. It is really nice, but, he probably needs a new one.

For Christmas, I managed to order some ecclesial wear for him from no less than the haberdasheri that also provides same for Pope Benedict XVI, Euroclero. I placed my order on Friday, at the ungodly hour of 4:30AM (Texas time) and found their customer service to rival that of Neiman Marcus and Saks. They could teach our country a thing or two about customer service. Today, I was shocked when my dad called me to tell me that I received a package from Euroclero. Talk about fast service.

You can find their online catalogue at:

www.euroclero.it

They speak English. Even though my Italian was somewhat broken, we understood each other. I was very much relieved when the staff spoke to me in English. Their prices are also very reasonable. Luckily, when I ordered, the Euro was at a pretty good exchange rate.

I will be ordering from them again. Come to think of it, I may just get him that alb for his silver jubilee before the one he has starts falling apart. :eek:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top