Frankly, as a priest, I find the comments in this thread remarkable – speculating about things as if they knew, yet with no practical experience, and moreover so little comprehension of what the Holy Father was actually saying in his homily
To address various points: if the priest were not of my diocese/entrusted to my supervision, no, I would not speak to him. That’s for one with oversight of him, not others
I know Euroclero well – as does any priest who has been in Rome. It is, after all, located across the street from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I’ve picked up items there on occasion due to it being convenient although I do my shopping elsewhere in Rome where I’ve a broader selection and the advantage of several different stores to make purchases, allowing for price variability and item availability
It’s hardly a store only frequented by clergy…in every instance I’m there, I find more laity buying rosaries and other such items than I do bishops, priests and seminarians
Personally, I’m most grateful for this Pope’s personal example as well as his admonitions, like this one, and his denunciations of excesses when it comes to the clergy…something which has been quite needed of late…but also which is something he notably continues from Blessed Pope Paul VI and Pope Saint John Paul II as they simplified what clergy wear. The silk simar and its accessories, for example, are consigned to the past, happily. As we focus on poverty and simplicity, that’s where such trappings need to be consigned and where they best remain; I don’t miss them in the least. Quite the opposite
I am quite pleased, for example, to have seen the transition from my youth to today…from pectoral crosses and rings of prelates of precious metals set with rubies, emeralds, sapphires or other precious stones to the pectoral cross and ring of Pope Francis, as an example…silver and devoid of precious stones but with simple engravings
Any priest who has actually done formation work knows extremely well and exactly the syndrome of which the Holy Father and the Monsignor allude. An over-fascination or interest in these baubles and externals should cause concern to any priest who is responsible for making determinations relative to formation. What the Pope describes is something to be extirpated
When we are talking about the Saturno, we are talking about a hat, that in terms of American currency, would cost over $200.00, especially those made of furs, as they were made, while the cape the Pope is speaking of can easily cost in excess of $300.00 or $400.00. They are the sort of items the wearing of which send a message of affectation and should cause concern. They’re also, practically, really not that useful or utilitarian
Personally, I wear a wool or rain coat which keeps me actually much warmer than the cape would and costs a fraction of the price and, unlike the cape, I wear over the soutane as well as the clerical suit. The same is true for the hat that I wear. Lest I be thought to be somehow out of step, I hasten to add a photo of Karol Cardinal Wojtyła whose selections very much reflect my own
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fc/3f/0b/fc3f0be45f51eddc6b44b58657ffebff.jpg
I don’t choose something antiquated and from another century that, as I said, sends its own signal, and violates that sense of poverty and simplicity which has ever increasingly marked ecclesiastical wear since Blessed Pope Paul’s simplification.
I would regard a cleric attiring himself in the way the Pope described in his homily rather as I would a cleric who came in wearing a coat made of fur. Many of us, of a certain age, have items from a bygone era that we inherited from deceased confreres who were ordained years or decades before us and in days when such items were normal wear, just as my grandparents in the 19th century had their own type of attire; in both cases they are more items appropriate to a museum than today’s use. That’s entirely different from a man in his 20s acquiring these things
.)