If you review our earlier exchange in this thread, it should be clear that I presented some examples of congregations of sisters where the “vision of the founder(s)” indeed included the habit and that very “vision” was discarded in their (the congregations’) post-conciliar zeal. The point I was trying to make is that the abandonment (or, as it is in some cases, the severe modification) of the habit is often not at all consistent with the founder’s principles.
The question is whether or not you want just to return to the tradition of the habit or to the whole tradition of the institute? Because you cannot have one without the other.
It seems to me that the total abandonment (or severe modification) of the habit has been far more prevalent among female religious (i.e. sisters, but even among some nuns) than it has among male religious.
You have not answered the question. The question is, are people concerned about women religious in habit or male and female religious in habit? If the concern is only about women religious, then the concern is gender oriented.
I ask again, is the desire to see religious return to the older habit or for women religious to return to the older habit?
Neither of those question has any real bearing on this thread. Those are matters that strictly concern the “inner workings” of the various Orders and congregations involved. Of course I cannot speak for others, but from what I have seen in this forum and elsewhere (including “real life”) I doubt that many “people in the pew” have strong feelings against any of it. And, IMHO, those who do should not.
It does, because as the saying goes, “Be careful what you ask for.” The Council asked religious to go back to their roots. This included dress, but it included more than dress. The document issued by the council, the documents that followed, and the direct orders that were given to religious communities as they met in general chaptes was to recover everything, if they were going to recover anything at all or to create new institutes.
If they go into recovery mode, the habit will come back, but there will be other things that will come back too. Suffice it to say that some of the things that we have already gone back to has not pleased many people who refer to themselves as traditionalists, because they were not counting on that, such as the movement toward street ministry and the exodus from parishes, such as the Franciscan Renewal movement is doing. That’s over 100 men, in one city, who are not being ordained, but highly educated in theology and philosophy, therefore qualified to be pastors. Instead they are walking the streets of NY serving food in soup kitchens, sheltering homeless and working with at risk youth. Which the rest of the Franciscan family applauds them for it and now we’re all trying to recover this spirit. The CFRs have been an inspiration to the rest of the family.
But many of the faithful are not happy to see them jamming at a youth rally, walking the beat on street with addicts and prostitutes, or seeing them move out of parishes in middle class
For other religious communities it may mean the teaching brother or teaching sister, but only in poor schools or schools for immigrants, not in the middle class Catholic school. We certainly do need our teaching sisters to come to the cities and to the poor rural areas to run schools, more so than suburbia does. I for one hope that when they reach back and recover tradition, they will recover not only the habit, but also the mission to teach the poorest of the poor first.
Albeit that it is a very visible one, the issue of the habit is a manifestation of the “vision of the founders” yet it one among many and does not, in itself, directly concern the charism of the Order or congregation. Perhaps those last two questions are better left to another thread.
In fraternal communnities the movement is to return to the days when you had no distinctions between the ordained and the non-cleric. It was the same habit, the same title (Friar, Brother, Frater or Other), the same ministries, equal authority, equal rights within the community and in ministry too. The only time you saw a difference was at mass, which is appropriate. When you meet them, you do not know who is who. Some people do not like this.
As many have said in other posts and threads, they want to be able to identify a priest. As some of us are returning to tradition, the identification is not impossible, but you do have to ask. The clerical and non-clericamil status are not visible. It does tie in to the question of habits. The habits make the identification more difficult, not less difficult. Do you want the habit that is traditional for that religious community, even though it blurs the lines so that priests are not easily identifiable?
Remember, I do wear a habit. So, I’m not anti habit. I come from a mixed religious family. In fact, we have many kinds of friars, because we have many branches. So we don’t have a uniform habit. While we love the tunic and chord, we also like the freedom that Francis gave us to decide for ourselves what would look like, for some, it’s just a short tunic to the knees with a chord. I believe the Franciscan Knights of the Holy Eucharist wear that habit.
I always like to help people realize that you have to be careful what you ask for and you also have to understand what the Church is requesting. It’s more than a habit. It’s a whole way of living and doing things. This is where new communities such as the Dominican Sisters of Mary are very helpful. They fill a gap that others cannot fill. They can teach the middle class and upward. Whereas, the older communities were founded for the education of very specific populations.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
