Odd question about cassocks & habits

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SisterSnowflake

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Could a cassock be turned into a habit type garment for a woman by removing the collar, or do the buttons scream “No, absolutely not; it can’t be done”? If the buttons make it a “no, no”, could a strip of cloth be "velcroed " over the buttons?

I sometimes have unique questions of no significance to anybody pop into my head! 😊
 
SisterSnowflake said:
Could a cassock be turned into a habit type garment for a woman by removing the collar, or do the buttons scream “No, absolutely not; it can’t be done”? If the buttons make it a “no, no”, could a strip of cloth be "velcroed " over the buttons?

I sometimes have unique questions of no significance to anybody pop into my head! 😊
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This is a “both yes and no” issue.

No. Every religious order (male or female) has its own design/style of habit. Therefore, any woman religious should be wearing her own order’s habit, not one of her own design.

Yes. If a religious order were to design a habit that somehow “resembles” a cassock in the way that you’ve described it, then it would be perfectly fine (as long as it’s done for legitimate reasons). Each order can design its own habit in whatever style the members choose, “within reason” of course.

There’s no significance to the buttons as such. Some priest cassocks don’t even have any visible buttons. There’s no “rule” that says clergy cassocks have buttons, but religious habits don’t have buttons, even though we might be accustomed to seeing it done that way.
 
I have been told by a priest that the buttons on a cassock number 33 for the age of Christ, unless you are too short to have that many.
 
jeanannemarie said:
I have been told by a priest that the buttons on a cassock number 33 for the age of Christ, unless you are too short to have that many.
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That’s one way of doing it, but it’s not the Roman custom (at least according as Gamarelli, Barbiconi, etc., still do today). I’m pretty it wasn’t the norm at any time in Rome. You could hypothetically always have 33 buttons regardless of your height. The buttons can be smaller and the space between them less; there is no regulation for these details (or the number of buttons, for that matter).

Some people also claim there are five buttons of the cuff of the cassock for the five wounds of Christ, though, again, you can see three or four, too, and these buttons are of Gallican, not Roman, origin and use.

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To answer the original question, the cut of the garment would be different, I’d be sure (if the cassock was made correctly–not like what most people are used to seeing the altar boys wearing on Sunday morning). Even the sack of the altar boy’s garment probably wouldn’t be sufficient to make an ample-enough habit that would resemble habits as they have traditionally been made.
 
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