J
JReducation
Guest
Add to this the norms of the religious institutes. Personally, I find it a little intrusive when canon law says that religious follow the rules and constitutions of their institute and the laity outside of the religious community wants to dictate to the religious
I think I find this part intrusive because the focus here seems to be on priests. The laity on this thread seems to be forgetting that most male religious communities are not exclusively communities of clerics and the founders never intended them to make distinctions between the members of the community. In other words, all the members of the community are to be taken into consideration when determining internal disciplines such as dress codes.
When you begin to make these distinctions for religious, such as priests should wear Roman Collars and forget the other members of the religious order, you are promoting a distinction between the members of the religious community that most religious orders are not allowed to make and was never in the mind of their founders.
To the best of my knowledge Franciscans, Carmelites, Benedictines, Augustinians, Trinitarians, Trappists, Cistercians, Carthusians, and Dominicans all use the title Brother or Friar in their rule and constitution for every member of the community and have never had distinct forms of dress that distinguished them from each other.
In our community you can’t tell one friar from another. They wear the same habit, the same Roman collar or the same secular dress. If we applied the idea that our clerics should wear a Roman collar when not in habit, but left our our lay brothers, then we would be acting contrary to our rule. Even our Secular Order has the same dress code for all of its members, clerical or lay. They are to wear the Tau over gray and white or black and white. There is no provision in the rule or constitutions of the secular order for the dress of deacons, priests or bishops. They follow the guidance of the Episcopal Conference.
Our own friar bishops only wear the bishop’s cassock when they are in a formal setting. Other than that, they wear the brother’s habit. The only distinguishing mark is a pectoral cross over the habit. I don’t know about Carmelites, but Benedictines and Dominican bishops also wear their habit with a pectoral cross.
The idea is to preserve the unity of the order and to help the religious feel part of the family, not different from his brothers.
I guess these little complexities are not always understood by the average lay person. That’s why the forcefulness of some posts sounds intrusive. There are circumstances, traditions and customs that the Church accepts and for which it makes room. Canon law is never so rigid nor does it address every possible situation, especially concerning religious.
Then there are the Byzantines for whom there are some distinct canons not included in the Roman law. I know a Byzantine Catholic priest who is married and the father of several children. In the USA it would be very confusing if he were to walk down the street holding his wife’s hand, while wearing a collar or robe. Nonetheless, he is a priest. Does the title of this thread include him too and our other Byzantine clerics who are married and have children? Should they show up at their little league game in clerical garb, in a country where the number of Byzantine married clerics is so small?
There are too many situations for the average person to know and for one rule to speak to all of them is a little difficult. This is why there is an allowance made for the judgement of the bishops or the religious superiors.
JR
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