No, what it sounds like is that he is wearing a cassock. The white garment is just an alb if it goes all the way down or it is a surplice if it does not. However, the surplice cannot be worn at mass if he is the principle celebrant. But choir dress (cassock, surplice, stole and optional beretta) can be worn at para-liturgical events, if serving as MC of a mass or performing any other Sacrament except a nuptual mass.One of our priests wears different garments than I’ve seen before – he wears the black underneath, and then a white layer over that which has what appears like crochet-like band on the bottom 6 inches or so, and his outer vestments never go lower than his knee-ish…is this from his specific order, or what does it designate, if anything? Thanks
Thankyou! Sounds to me like he’s wearing the alb vs. surplice. Is this just a personal preference issue?No, what it sounds like is that he is wearing a cassock. The white garment is just an alb if it goes all the way down or it is a surplice if it does not. However, the surplice cannot be worn at mass if he is the principle celebrant. But choir dress (cassock, surplice, stole and optional beretta) can be worn at para-liturgical events, if serving as MC of a mass or performing any other Sacrament except a nuptual mass.
Not really. The wear of the cassock is optional but while at mass the wear of the alb is required if the priest is the celebrat or concelebrant.Thankyou! Sounds to me like he’s wearing the alb vs. surplice. Is this just a personal preference issue?
Why do you call it “eccentric”?He is wearing traditional vestituture, at least up to the point you stated. Old vestituture started with a cassock, over which one put first and amice (a sort of shawl) and an alb which usually had the lace at the bottom you describe. I imgaine this priest is not so eccentric as to use a maniple (a band of cloth hung over the arm), but after putting on a stole, he would then don the chasuble, and often it was a fiddleback chasuble which looks more like a two-sided apron than anything else.
In the movement that calls itself traditional Catholic, these kinds of vestments are still in favor, though to my mind if someone is celebrating a rare solemn Mass it makes the priest look less well vested than the deacon and subdeacon. I had a curate at the parish where I grew up, which had one of the early (and fairly successful) modern style churches forced on it when the old one was condemned, who could not stand that they had not bothered to buy newer vestments, and spent his own money on a very lovely set for himself. To my taste, the modern style of linen (well, let’s face it often polyester) alb covered by stole and a chasuble that fits as an outer garment is far superior, and I don’t think the last couple of popes, who are/were always gorgeously vested, would disagree with me.
I was under the impression that the maniple had been supressed, i.e. was no longer an open option.I imgaine this priest is not so eccentric as to use a maniple (a band of cloth hung over the arm), but after putting on a stole, he would then don the chasuble, and often it was a fiddleback chasuble which looks more like a two-sided apron than anything else.
The maniple has been supressed, at least in Australia and the US, at NO masses.I was under the impression that the maniple had been supressed, i.e. was no longer an open option.
I thought it might be helpful to point out that thanks to American exceptionalism we can sometimes have a distorted view of what elements are “traditionalist” in terms of being mainly confined to the 1962 missal and which are not. Although I know you live in Bavaria at present, I can think of a couple European examples off the top of my head where fiddle backs are still used quite regularly for the N.O. but they all seem to be more “elevated” occasions - the Dom (Cathedral) St. Jakob in Innsbruck seems to possess only fiddlebacks (in 10 months of semi-regular attendance I never saw a different style) and Cdl. O’Malley took possession of his titular church wearing a splendid green (seemingly fairly new) fiddleback - something I doubt he would ever wear in his own diocese - and carrying veiled instruments so that if he had only been wearing a maniple I would have assumed he was celebrating the TLM. So the idea that Gothic and Semi-Gothic chasubles are the “modern” vestments seems to be more regional than universal.
Personally I find lace on a man a bit fussy and effeminate rather than dignified - same with gloves. Just personal taste.Why do you call it “eccentric”?
Modern fashion…ugh (for certain elements: I like the flowing chasubles also). Give me the old Papal fashion any day and decoration of fiddlebacks any day. You would be suprised at how much dignity a nice lace alb (there are also not nice ones) adds to the celebrant. Still, you have not seen the combination of a lace alb and the drabest dirtiest green polyester chasuble alive. I was priveleged to witness it at a concelebrated Mass with the bishop when the sacristy ran out of the nice green chasubles.