Dressing for failure

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At the dusk of the Second Vatican Council, priests in their droves discarded their clericals and hid amongst the faithful, resulting in a downward spiral still bearing rotten fruit today. Many priests stopped acting like priests when they ceased living like priests; they ceased living like priests when they stopped praying like priests. And they stopped praying like priests when they stopped dressing like priests.
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The author relates lack of priestly identity and lack of priestly fidelity to lack of clerical garb. I was surprised to learn of seminaries that actually prohibit seminarians from wearing clerical garb. In my own diocese, seminarians wear clerical garb beginning with their 1st Theology year.

Dressing for failure.
 
JimG said:
The author relates lack of priestly identity and lack of priestly fidelity to lack of clerical garb. I was surprised to learn of seminaries that actually prohibit seminarians from wearing clerical garb. In my own diocese, seminarians wear clerical garb beginning with their 1st Theology year.

Dressing for failure.
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The priest’s 'uniform" is one of the ways of demonstrating your faith. I personally am not happy seeing my pastor “out of uniform” outside the church. He doesn’t cease to witness when he is outside the church. In fact, priests should make sure that they are visible in their mission.
 
I don’t think this is really a big issue. And calling it ‘failure’ is ridiculous.
 
In keeping with my statements from yesterday, I pray for God to send His grace of patience to everyone posting in this thread, in Jesus’ name. Pax Christi.
 
StudentMI said:
I don’t think this is really a big issue. And calling it ‘failure’ is ridiculous.
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There were 2 priests at my last parish. (Both have since been reassigned.)

One wore his collar 25/8; the other would dress in “civvies” for office work in the parish.

Both were loved by the folks in the pews.

ICXC NIKA
 
Gotta say, I’m a sucker for the long black cassocks of priests like those in the FSSP. Those guys nothing but.

But I’d be far more concerned about nuns giving up their habits and the negative outcomes of that move. They seem far greater to me than negatives associated with priests occasionally wearing civies.
 
A couple of weeks ago our parish has a total priest staff transition. We went from four Jesuit priests (average age of 81) to two (third arriving this week) diocesan priests (average age of about 35-40). The Jesuits typically wore “civilian” clothes with the exception of Sundays and other official events. The two diocesan priests only wear their clerical garb. The 20 something Parochial Vicar is supposedly know to wear a cassock.

Even their vestments are different.

Putting their dressing styles aside, all of these men are wonderful and they love celebrating the Eucharist. The Jesuits were all known to be wonderful spiritual directors and well versed in Ignatian Spirituality.
 
Just my two cents worth here. I suppose you have to ask what the purpose of clerical garb is. It seems to me that clerical garb is to show that one is a priest and a servant of God. I completely understand priests wearing civilian clothes here and there. Hiking in a cassock might be tough and hanging around the house without a collar is fine. But in the eyes of the public, what’s to distinguish the priest from Joe Blow? If the cassock and collar isn’t used for that purpose why have it at all? If it’s not to show people that one is the alter Christus, why wear it. That’s why, in my opinion, priests should wear the collar more often than not. Specifically in public.
 
I don’t think it matters at all.
My former pastor wore civvies when pursuing his hobby: drag racing… After the races, he’d go for a beer with the other men, and those who didn’t know him would always ask what his profession was. His standard response was “I see dead people”. And then others would crack up and say, yeah, he’s a Catholic priest!

The priest and canonist that married Joe and I said he never wears clerics on a plane because people spit on him due to the priest scandals and it makes a long flight miserable with all the wise cracks behind his back and also to his face.

I’ve also worked for priests who wear their blacks 24-7.

I don’t really equate either with holiness or lack thereof.

The Archdiocesan priests around here consider those long robes very “fussy” in a not so flattering sort of way. :o

I prefer that a priest ACT like a priest than worry about what he wears.
Failure indeed. :rolleyes:
The bottom line is, if you are a holy and faithful priest, great in ministry, and compassionate, what you are wearing isn’t going to diminish that. It may even change people’s view of a vocation to the priesthood.

People advancing that one type of priestly vocation is somehow “better” than another does more harm than any golf shirt.
 
I am inquiring into the catholic church at a large parish that has several seminarians. They wear clerical garb, even when they they are not assisting with the mass
 
Hello.

I think priests should wear their clericals during their regular duties. It’s a part of witnessing to the faith. I think in the Beatitudes something’s mentioned about how blessed you are when you’re persecuted →
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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so, to me, in a way it’s like killing 2 birds with one stone -->both witnessing to the faith as well as getting blessings → or using this suffering to offer up for one of the many troubles in the world. It may well take courage. I don’t think being a priest these days is for the faint of heart. I’ve heard of a priest around here who someone spit at because he was a priest. Wearing clericals can indeed be part of a cross a priest must carry.

However, when I see a priest, recognizable in his clericals, anywhere, I feel so comforted. It gives me courage to go on.

Seems to me if someone’s preparing to be a priest they should be aware that they’ve got a big target painted on them, and the clerical garb is part of this target.

As for this being dressed for failure, I think the failure is in terms of the world, but certainly not in God’s Kingdom. I think in this sense dressing in clericals is actually dressing for success.
 
I think seminarians should wear cassocks, but there should something to distinguish them as seminarians, not priests.

I think they need to put on a mantle of the vocation that they are called to.

The problem being is that such a practice varies from diocese to diocese, to begin with. I thought the minor orders were tossed overboard without much explanation to the lay faithful, as if it weren’t our business. Vat II was not a lay person’s council. Our opinions were not sought.
 
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