Priests Lost Among The Secular World

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Dang_Nguyen said:
To me, this argument is a huge cop-out for the fact they don’t want to wear a “dress” when they are not required to.
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That’s a pretty good reason. Fashions do change and are not exactly a matter of faith. As to the collar, I get what you are saying if a priest never wears it outside his duty. However, all need a break sometime. I do not think anyone would believe that a job that lasts a lifetime should never have time off, either for rest and relaxation, or for the mundane part of life.

I think you have presented a good point, but one that is but one consideration for priests, who ultimately have to decide how to live their life as a good priest.
 
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Dang_Nguyen said:
Not every diocese has the same scandal, in my original post, I said nothing of them… I live in a place where priests are respected and yet they are still hiding their collar. I am not saying that once you are ordained a priest, the collar is glued to you forever, I offered my support in #17, did you just skip that?
“Declare that I know more than the church”? Just because I disagree?

You all just assumed that I’m here to attack priests for trying to hide from scandal when I was originally talking about something so much more casual and simple. The time of scandal was in the past, stop living in it.

What concerned me is that priest just decides to take off their collar and blend into the public for no good reasons. It’s like they have an option to decide whether they want to be priest or not.
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Have you bothered to actually speak to them heart to heart? Have you asked your Bishop what he allows?

I’m guessing not.

Also…the “time of scandal was in the past?” 🤨 What WORLD are you living on? It seems I cannot go a day without hearing about it from secular colleagues. As we near Haloween, it gets even worse because people STILL think it’s funny to wear the “Abusive priest” costume. It’s still on store shelves.

So please, do tell me how it is “over”. Perhaps the Church has moved beyond, but society has not. Even Googling “priest” news.google.com gets you an abuse case from 2 days ago. Hardly “gone”.
 
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The following teaching is from Our Lady of Revelation and She touches on this. It’s the first part of a 7 part series.

 
Nah, what kind of messed up world you are living in? Abusive priest? Lmao and your community allows it? What shame!
 
Dang_Nguyen said:
Nah, what kind of messed up world you are living in? Abusive priest? Lmao and your community allows it? What shame!
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This case in the news is not in my dioceses.

My point is that abuse scandals are FAR from off the radar in the secular world. The current cases coming up are from Guam, which isn’t even the US. (technically)

My point is that the anger of society is still VERY real and is only reignited every time something new comes to light. Things have NOT stopped coming to light for decades now. It doesn’t matter if the spark comes from Ireland or the UK, from Australia, South America, Africa or Guam. The fury is still very real. The pain is still palpable.

And yet you sit in judgment of what you do not know.
 
I’m perfectly happy to let priests wear whatever their bishops or religious superiors decide is appropriate. Frankly it’s none of my business what they wear. The same holds true for religious sisters. People get obsessed about how other people dress but never seen to want to burden themselves with odd or distinctive clothing.
 
Sucks that we have live in different places and have different background. What I think normal is obviously not the same for you. I’m sorry if it sounded as if I’m am trying to push my opinion on all. I was ignorant. My concern was for the priests who are not living in fear of death or persecution. I never meant to judge what I don’t know-original post mentioned nothing of scandals- what I wanted to do was to speak my mind of priests who think that they can just become a normal lay person when ever they want.
If I offended you, I’m sorry.
 
I didn’t consider anything about anywhere other than the world I’m living in where priests are the most respected and I spoke in that context. Maybe I should have prefaced it in the original post but the word limit made it hard.
 
Dang_Nguyen said:
I didn’t consider anything about anywhere other than the world I’m living in where priests are the most respected and I spoke in that context. Maybe I should have prefaced it in the original post but the word limit made it hard.
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That’s fine.

I guess because even before the scandals, I never really saw priests being all that respected (different than now) I can’t really fathom a place in which they are universally respected. Perhaps in the Philippines or in Poland? That would truly be nice.

Before the scandals, diocean priests were seen as layabouts who lived off the fat of the Church. Religious priests were more respected because they had a vow of poverty.

Now? Things are very different. Priests are seen as public enemy #1.

And, I think it’s easy to not consider that. Afterall, as Catholics WE respect our priests greatly. We love our priests. I have a friend who’s a campus minister in AZ. She’s a nun. She has to be careful not to travel with a priest in a collar because even in a place where they are both, generally, respected people who see a priest and nun together assume that they are up to no good. So often, even though there is no danger to him, the campus minister will put on an ordinary shirt when they need to go out to get supplies or do something because he does not want her virtue tarnished by idle gossip.
 
I’ve already had to withdraw half a dozen posts, so don’t feel too bad. I think it is good to focus on the principles, the advantage of visibility of the priests in this case, as that applies everywhere, even when there are other considerations. Then let the priests make up their own mind. If you see one and want to say something, I would spin it as a positive, that is, how proud it makes you, safe it makes you feel, comforted, and so forth, when you see him in the community with his signs of spiritual authority.
 
I’m familiar with it.

Have you brushed your teeth yet today?
 
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Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
The DO want to be Priests, and the Holy Mother Church, in her infinite wisdom–through the USCCB has ALLOWED them to remove their identifiers in order to remain safe…at least in some places.
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Do actual rules exist requiring priest to wear clerics at all times? I thought just custom. I didn’t realize that not wearing clerics required special permission.
 
babochka said:
Do actual rules exist requiring priest to wear clerics at all times? I thought just custom. I didn’t realize that not wearing clerics required special permission.
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You’re dealing with 2 different types of priests, so lets clarify. Religious and diocesan.

For the order, it depends very much on the head of the order. For instance, one sister I know is allowed to wear “normal” clothes during her home visit when she goes to the beach so she can enjoy swimming in the ocean and not be endangered by her habit. Another sister I know is not permitted street clothes for any reason. Logic would say that male orders work the same way. Depends on rules of the order.

I actually don’t know for the dioceses level. Priest owe obediance to the bishop, so I think they would need to defer to him. Given that it was a “big deal” that it was announced they were permitted to not wear any identifiers at their own discretion, it would appear to be more than just a custom, but I do not know for sure. However, it could very well be that this was a rule of the Archbishop and not universal to all US jurisdictions.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
I actually don’t know for the dioceses level. Priest owe obediance to the bishop, so I think they would need to defer to him. Given that it was a “big deal” that it was announced they were permitted to not wear any identifiers at their own discretion, it would appear to be more than just a custom, but I do not know for sure. However, it could very well be that this was a rule of the Archbishop and not universal to all US jurisdictions.
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The DO want to be Priests, and the Holy Mother Church, in her infinite wisdom–through the USCCB has ALLOWED them to remove their identifiers in order to remain safe…at least in some places.
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Ok. It sounded as if you had some specific knowledge of an actual decision made by the USCCB regarding this matter.
 
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babochka said:
Ok. It sounded as if you had some specific knowledge of an actual decision made by the USCCB regarding this matter.
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I do know that the USCCB gave Bishops and Archbishops the ability to allow priests to choose whether or not to wear their collar at their discression. It occurred sometime in the early 2000’s.

What I do not know is the rules before it got to this point.
 
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It’s interesting to compare this thread to the one elsewhere on the board about the guy in Chicago who dressed up in a cassock and went around for a day to see what reactions he would get there. Mostly very respectful ones, as well as a lot of people taking his picture (although many thought he was Greek Orthodox or other Orthodox, probably because he also had a beard).

On the flip side, I have also noticed that when I go on pilgrimages to Europe that are led by a priest or two, the priests will always be wearing their collar, I suspect partly because they get a lot of special treatment and perks, such as being treated very respectfully in a lot of the hotels and tourist venues, let into cathedrals without having to pay the admission ticket, etc. Any major shrine site is going to have priests running around in droves in their priest garb, ranging from just the collar to a full cassock with whatever else they like to add (big brimmed hats, kinte cloth, rosaries etc.) It’s kind of nice to see all the different clothing choices on the priests.
 
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