I’m sorry Spiller, I get your point, but I suddenly go this random image of a Mormon when you said black suit, whtie shirt and black tie or a rabbi.
Having grown up Jewish I saw many rabbis in black white when not at services.
I have to admit that they didn’t look like American priests.
On a more serious note, the Roman collar is more of an American and Vatican form of dress than any other part of the world.
I grew up in Europe and very few priests in Spain wore Roman collars. They’re not part of the culture. Before the civil war they wore cassocks or habits. After the civil war, which was very anticlerical, they wore black crew neck sweaters with either gray or black jackets.
After the Franco dictatorship was over, the custom had taken root and the black crewneck is still in place. The same happened in Germany, the Netherlands and some parts of Northern France. The clergy wears black suits, black ties and white shirts. Slowly, the Roman collar is making its way into the German church. I saw a picture of Ratzinger when he was professor at the university in a suit and tie. After he became pope I saw interviews of his brother, George, in a roman collar.
The garb does not seem to be as big a deal among other Catholics as it seems here.
When I was in the missions in South America I worked with Capuchin Franciscans. It was very hot, because we were in the Amazon region. The friars wore khaki clothes every where. The habit was only worn for liturgy, Divine Office and formal community functions. The collar was rarely worn, because of the heat.
However, the people knew the friars. They even knew which friar was a priest and which was a lay man, even though all friars wear the same habit and the same roman collar. Even when they called a lay-brother Father, he would say, I’m Brother John. Or when they called a friar priest Father, he would say, I’m Brother Peter.
There were no deacons, as the order does not allow permanent deacons. We did have transitional deacons with us who were doing their interships. They too wore the same garb, either the khaki or the habit. The Roman collar was reserved for when you went to some kind of business meeting where you needed to be identified as a religious.
After a while, people get to know who you are and the external dress is less important.
The only time you could tell the difference between priests, lay brothes and transitional deacons was at mass. Even there the priests and transitional deacons wore the same monastic alb, but with the obvious difference of the stole. Forget dalmatics, it was too hot and there are no dry cleaners in the Amazon or washing machines. Everything is hand washed. Everything must be very simple to keep clean. The chasuables were made of some light weight cloth that was washable by hand, not the fancy ones with all of the stuff that we have on ours.
We often forget that we live in a privileged culture with such things as dry cleaning, washing machines and clothes dryers. This is not the reality of the rest of the world, even in Europe it’s rare to see a clothes dryer.
We should focus on the ministry and keep the garb simple and dignified.
JR
