Can we use Pre-VII vestnments?

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TAS2000

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Our parish has some vestments in a back closet, not being used because “they are pre-Vatican II, and we can’t use them.” I understand that they are decorated more on the back rather than the front because the priest used to face the other way. But is there any actual prohibition on using them? Some of them are much nicer than the “contemporary” ones we curenly use. (At least more ornate, and IMO thatmakes them prettier than the plain ones we have.)

Couple this with a “problem” that we have recently acquired a deacon who provides his own vestments, which (since he buys them himself) are fancier than the priest’s, who is using the ones the parish already has. So it looks odd to have the deacon in fancier vestments than the priest.
 
There is no prohibition against using pre-Vatican II vestments. Your parish is actually quite blessed that no one destroyed or disposed of them in the past.

I would really encourage your pastor to start using them again. As Catholic we fully emrace the sensuality in our masses. Everything should be used to bring our minds to focus on the glory of God. The smell of incense and beeswax; the taste of His body; the sight of icons and beautiful vestments, etc.
 
The thought process is that vestments were supposed to reflect “noble simplicity” rather than “splendour” (cf Sacrosanctum Concilium). So, they went from the fiddlebacks to the modern ones.

Too many of the modern ones are tacky though.
 
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TAS2000:
Our parish has some vestments in a back closet, not being used because “they are pre-Vatican II, and we can’t use them.” I understand that they are decorated more on the back rather than the front because the priest used to face the other way. But is there any actual prohibition on using them? Some of them are much nicer than the “contemporary” ones we curenly use. (At least more ornate, and IMO thatmakes them prettier than the plain ones we have.)

Couple this with a “problem” that we have recently acquired a deacon who provides his own vestments, which (since he buys them himself) are fancier than the priest’s, who is using the ones the parish already has. So it looks odd to have the deacon in fancier vestments than the priest.
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Some of the vestments you described may have been Copes. They were worm for the Asperges, Benedictions and other solemn occasions other than the Holy Mass. They were not used in the Mass itself. They were much more highly ornate in all respects, especially on the back then was the chasuble. I haven’t seen a lot of difference in the chasubles of today and back then. As to the Deacon, the proper attire for a Deacon as far as I know is either the alb or the dalmatic .A dalmatic is fairly ornate itself so maybe that is what he is wearing. He should not be wearing a chasubile at all. The chasubile is the clored robe the Priest wears over the alb, which is the white robe he and the alter servers wear. I’m not sure but I believe that if the deacon uses the alb then the maniple is crossed over his breast to the right side so as to differentiate him from the Priest.
 
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BillyT92679:
The thought process is that vestments were supposed to reflect “noble simplicity” rather than “splendour” (cf Sacrosanctum Concilium). So, they went from the fiddlebacks to the modern ones.

Too many of the modern ones are tacky though.
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I’ve really never understood the phrase nobile simplicity.
 
There are no limitations on the use of pre-Vatican II vestments such as albs, chausables, dalmatics copes or stoles.

The Maniple has ommited in the new rubrics and thus cannot be licitily worn.

(the maniple is a narrow band of cloth that is drapped over the left arm , it’s original purpose was a kind of handkerchief to wipe off persperation,)
 
I am very sure the Deacon is wearing only properly allowed stuff. However, to the average dummy, myself included, we couldn’t tell the difference between a dalmatic, a cope, and a chasabule. Many times I have seen him wear the diagonal what’d you call it? maniple? over the white robe (alb?). It looks like a stole, only longer and cut so that it is worn diagonally. But since Lent started, he has been wearing a purple vestment (must be a dalmatic if that is what Deacons wear). But his looks more like the ornate gothic picture while the priest’s looks like the simple gothic example given. Very plain. So I have heard several people comment about the Deacon being more decked out than the priest.

So if those vestments in the back cupboard are Copes we can’t use them at mass? How would I know if it was a cope?
 
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Brendan:
There are no limitations on the use of pre-Vatican II vestments such as albs, chausables, dalmatics copes or stoles.

The Maniple has ommited in the new rubrics and thus cannot be licitily worn.

(the maniple is a narrow band of cloth that is drapped over the left arm , it’s original purpose was a kind of handkerchief to wipe off persperation,)
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Always did get the maniple and the stole mixed up.
 
What about the Amice?
I think An Alb looks much better with one.
I hate to see priests vested for mass, with the Roman collar sticking out like A sore thumb.
The Amice covers it up.
 
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TAS2000:
I am very sure the Deacon is wearing only properly allowed stuff. However, to the average dummy, myself included, we couldn’t tell the difference between a dalmatic, a cope, and a chasabule. Many times I have seen him wear the diagonal what’d you call it? maniple? over the white robe (alb?). It looks like a stole, only longer and cut so that it is worn diagonally. But since Lent started, he has been wearing a purple vestment (must be a dalmatic if that is what Deacons wear). But his looks more like the ornate gothic picture while the priest’s looks like the simple gothic example given. Very plain. So I have heard several people comment about the Deacon being more decked out than the priest.

So if those vestments in the back cupboard are Copes we can’t use them at mass? How would I know if it was a cope?
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Copes are pretty big and usually heavy. They look like a big cape.They were only worn at special functions like bendedictions etc outside of mass. They don’t look like the chasubile if you look at them closely.

I don’t think you are a dummy. A lot of people don’t know now and didn’t know then the differences in the vestments.or the proper names. The only reason I do is that I served mass for a long long time and we had to. I never could keep the maniple and the stole straight though 🙂 One of our jobs was to lay out the vestments for the priest and if we got it wrong, he’d really let us know about it. I know about the cope being heavy because I had to carry it a lot When they had benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, it was usually after or before Mass. I would have to get the cope from the sacristy, take it out to where Fathert was waiting, put it on over his shoulders. He would then proceed and when finished, I would have to remove the cope and take it back to the sacristy… All very rutualistic

As to the dalmatic, you see them a LOT at Papal Masses. They are the tunic looking things with the embroidery at the bottom, at the ends of the sleeves and down the front. . Sometimes thay are very frilly and lacy looking.
 
QUICUMQUE VULT:
What about the Amice?
I think An Alb looks much better with one.
I hate to see priests vested for mass, with the Roman collar sticking out like A sore thumb.
The Amice covers it up.
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I think they are still technically suppposed to wear the amice. Could be wrong on that, but I think they are.
 
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TAS2000:
I. Many times I have seen him wear the diagonal what’d you call it? maniple? over the white robe (alb?). It looks like a stole, only longer and cut so that it is worn diagonally.
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That is a stole. The stole of a deacon goes diagonally across his chest. The stole of a priest hangs straight down.
But since Lent started, he has been wearing a purple vestment (must be a dalmatic if that is what Deacons wear). But his looks more like the ornate gothic picture while the priest’s looks like the simple gothic example given. Very plain. So I have heard several people comment about the Deacon being more decked out than the priest.
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That sounds like a dalmatic. It IS very much like the chasuble (the priests garment), but a dalmatic will have short sleeves.
 
When in 1968 my parish tore down its old church (because it was condemned) and built a new one, already a modern church in the round because that was the new guideline, they did not bother to modernize several things (because they could not affort them). One of those was the vestments, which continued to be the neo-gothic vestments they had been using.

Then we got a curate who realized that this was an aesthetic sillines and spent his own money buying (very beautiful) modern style vestments. He was a young man who seemed to be the only one who realized that you can’t put the old against the new (even just visually) without creating a jarring aesthetic clash. Modern vestments can and should be very elegant and beautiful.

Since then I have been observing images of “traditional” celebrations of the Mass in which the chasuble is not much more than a sleeveless drape over front and back, a glorified scapular as it were. I guess I’m supposed to remember this from my childhood, but it looks so completely ridiculous that it only confirms the notion that the “traditional” movement just wants everything to look as it commonly did in 1960 or 1955 and to heck with everything else. Even in those days, a chasuble of any substance ran over the edges of the shoulders and looked like an overgarment, not a decoration over a linen called an alb.
 
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TAS2000:
Our parish has some vestments in a back closet, not being used because “they are pre-Vatican II, and we can’t use them.” I understand that they are decorated more on the back rather than the front because the priest used to face the other way. But is there any actual prohibition on using them? Some of them are much nicer than the “contemporary” ones we curenly use. (At least more ornate, and IMO thatmakes them prettier than the plain ones we have.)

Couple this with a “problem” that we have recently acquired a deacon who provides his own vestments, which (since he buys them himself) are fancier than the priest’s, who is using the ones the parish already has. So it looks odd to have the deacon in fancier vestments than the priest.
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There is no prohibition.
 
Since then I have been observing images of “traditional” celebrations of the Mass in which the chasuble is not much more than a sleeveless drape over front and back, a glorified scapular as it were. I guess I’m supposed to remember this from my childhood, but it looks so completely ridiculous that it only confirms the notion that the “traditional” movement just wants everything to look as it commonly did in 1960 or 1955 and to heck with everything else. Even in those days, a chasuble of any substance ran over the edges of the shoulders and looked like an overgarment, not a decoration over a linen called an alb.
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The style you describe is called a fiddleback (see pictures I posted earlier in this thread), and was the predominant style of chasuble in the West from the Baroque period until the middle of the twentieth century, when Gothic vestments began to make a comeback. Not until after Vatican II did Gothic vestments once again predominate.

Why do you have such rage against fiddleback chasubles? Why do you use them as an excuse to rant against Traditional Catholics who prefer them? Why does their desire to have such vestments automatically render them narrow-minded? How does the use of fiddlebacks constitute proof of such narrow-mindedness?

It sounds as if you were not exposed, or do not remember being exposed to, fiddlbacks, and consequently consider them and those prefer them deficient.:tsktsk:
 
I know we are talking about chasubles, but am I the only one who hates today’s albs? not the hooded ones if they are made with a heavier fabric, but those nasty polyester ones with the velcro closure by the neck? They are horrible looking. Does anyone know where to purchase traditional albs like they used to wear? With the lace on the sleeves and bottom hem?

Stephen
 
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slewi:
I know we are talking about chasubles, but am I the only one who hates today’s albs? not the hooded ones if they are made with a heavier fabric, but those nasty polyester ones with the velcro closure by the neck? They are horrible looking. Does anyone know where to purchase traditional albs like they used to wear? With the lace on the sleeves and bottom hem?

Stephen
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i agree those things are horrid!
our Priests and Deacons wear the lace ones, with the Amice underneath. But then we have the TLM Deo Gratias.
 
There is no prohibition on Pre-Vatican II vestments whatsoever. Indeed, a Novus Ordo Mass could licitly have many of the things that many people say Vatican II said they couldn’t do anymore (Gregorian Chant, Polyphony, Communion rails, ad orientem, the old high altar, Latin, incense, sanctus bells, traditional vestments, patens, women wearing veils- by choice though, etc.)
 
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Chatter163:
There was nothing unusually ornate about the fiddleback chasubles. Some were quite ornate, just as some Gothic vestments are very ornate, while others were quite simple. In fact, fiddlebacks are being made again, though they are purchased primarily by TLM communities.

Simple fiddleback:
Website Disabled

Ornate fiddleback:
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Simple Gothic:
http://www.stbrigids-kilbirnie.com/Media/church-uten/chasuble-3.jpg

Ornate Gothic:
http://www.salesians.org.uk/assets/images/tl5094.jpg
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True, but the tendency of the Roman Chasuble was toward ornate beauty. I prefer the fiddleback, but the Gothic that you show is a good one. My old church had a Rose Gothic vestment for Gaudete and Laetare that was gorgeous.

I prefer we used gold more often in major solemn feasts.
 
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