Thoughts on collarless Priests?

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MiserereMei25

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I am quite fond of the Irish Jesuits and their ministry. But the one thing that really grinds my gears is the fact that they refuse to wear any clerical al habit or collar. Furthermore they are not referred to as Father.

Why do you think this is? I think that our world needs more priests in public wearing their collar. It strikes conversation.
 
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I’m all for priests wearing clerical habits and collars and being recognised for who they are…And Definetly being called Father.
 
Do they refuse, or is it part of their “habit” to dress as the people they are ministering to?
I am not sure what the answer is, but that question should be answered before we demand that they wear something.

As to priests in general wearing collars, if they are doing a clerical or liturgical function, then yes, I feel they should wear a collar. But to be working in the office, or on their day off, or even while running errands during they day, unless their Bishop or Superior states otherwise, they should be able to wear the clothes they are most comfortable in.
 
Priests should wear clerical garb in public. It’s the proper dress of the priest.
 
After the 2nd Vatican counsel. clergy and religious appeared to experience a world wide identity crisis. I saw an example of this in the 90’s at Catholic University where the majority of clergy and religious that taught did not wear habits or collars. “Fitting in with the people” did not really help me as a student nor the game of “hunt for the symbol” as I looked for a cross, pin, or ring, to show that the person was from an order, ordained, or otherwise. In DC on a subway during the time some clergy was misbehaving, some teen ager made a crude comment to a priest. True to city behavior, nobody said anything. I yelled from across the aisle for him to take it back and that I am not a priest so I am not bound to turn the other cheek. He mumbled and appology, and I told him to make it louder- which he did, and got off at the next stop. The padre then thanked me. I saw him months later at a parish down the street as its pastor.
 
well a black priestly uniform is symbolic of dying to the world to be in service of the church.

Also what bothers me is this. What if someone was dying or I injured in public and in urgent need of a priest. We wouldn’t know one was in the crowd or area! Or what of I urgently needed to get to confession but couldn’t because of time and circumstances and I spot a priest while I’m out and about. What a grace for that person it would be. Seeing a priest is a sign of hope and one of evangelization. It is concerning that that would be permitted by their bishop. On a day off I can understand, but not on the job.
 
We just don’t need priests and religious trying to “dress like the people” we need courageous symbols of a life lived in service to God as priests and religious. There’s something precious about that in our decaying modern society.
 
By contrast, seminarians that are niether ordained deacons or priests are doing the ordained a big diservice when they where a collar they never earned. Many I noticed never corrected people when they were addressed as father when they were not ordained.
 
I always wonder why it is that people who don’t belong to a certain group – like priests or religious sisters – think their opinions about what those people should wear has any value.
 
Actually, that is what many of the orders do indeed call for.
“Habits” were not meant to make the person stand out, but to blend in with those they were ministering to.
 
This!!
In my diocese, a permanent Deacon cannot wear a collar, but a 1st-year seminarian is expected to.
Makes absoultely no sense to me at all.
 
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Wait. How were Dominican habitats mean to blend in with the people? Or Callimus brothers, or passionists? Or fransicans (who are to embrace total poverty)…? Surely lay people didn’t wear long black gowns with red crosses the the Callimus?
 
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I always wonder why particular religious sisters who expressed wanting to wear a traditional habit to their habitless superior gets laughed at or looked at like they are insane. Has happened a few times.
 
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Also some of the habit-less sisters in my diocese have been caught bending the rules of orthodoxy and what not.
One of them was caught saying private masses because she thought women could say mass just as well as male priests can.
 
For example- the Sisters of St. Joseph in my area, when they were founded in France around the 18th century, they were to wear what a widow would have worn in their particular area.
As times and fashions changed, the habit did not, to there point where it became totally impractical clothing for the time and what they were doing.
Vatican II called for all orders, congregations, ect. to look back at their Constitutions and make sure that they were still in line with their respective founders ideas. This is why so many “ditched” habits. They were no longer practical and sometimes, not even in line with what the founder originally desired.

It is ultimately up to the Bishop or Superior to decide what those under him/her should wear. It is not my place as a lay person to dictate my thoughts on the matter to them.
 
I don’t think the New Testament implies that the Apostles were known as Apostles because of their garments. They were known by their zeal for the Gospel. If a priest couldn’t be recognizes as a priest if he weren’t wearing a collar, that is a problem. If he’s not wearing a collar because he doesn’t want the constant expectation that he will act as if he has made the radical commitment to the Gospel that he has, that is a problem. If anyone who knows him could not mistake him as anything but “if that guy isn’t a priest, he ought to be,” then I don’t see how failing to wear a collar is a major problem. My opinion is that the priest ought to comply with what their superior requires, though, and I’m not their superior. It is the religious orders decide the dress code for their own communities, and bishops who make these decisions for diocesan priests.

As far as accepting being referred to as Father, it depends on whether they are taking “all no one on earth your father” (Matt. 23:9) to an extreme or whether they are shrinking from being identified with what is, yes, a radical call. That is a bit more problematic, as it implies they may think priests who do accept that honorific are being pompous, which is not true.
 
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St. ignatius did not give the Jesuits a habit. They are allowed to decide what to wear. Today, many wear clerical suits, but some wear street clothes. This is their prerogative according to their documents, so it’s not really up to us.

Having said that, I have a preference for seeing religious in a habit or other clerical attire. In fact, I wish lay members of third orders had more obvious habits as well. In this world of ours, the more signs of faith we have in public the better. BUT, again, it’s not up to me.
 
I don’t know anything about the Irish Jesuits.

But I do prefer when a priest will sometimes wear normal clothing. It’s a good reminder that he is a real human being, too. And it helps diminish unhealthy clericalism, in my opinion — at least in the sense of the laity setting the clergy too apart.

Also remember that clerical garb developed over time, and the first few centuries — yes, even the first few hundred years — priests didn’t look that much different from laity.
 
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