US: New Jersey Priest Asks Lector: Please Don't Wear Black Lives Matter Shirt

[Patri]

A number of people think it is inappropriate to wear t-shirts (even without a message) to church. I do understand depending on the message but not enforcing a strict dress code,. But we’ll, different strokes for different folk.

 

[NevermoreLenore]

Lol I hear you…they are all aspiring to be the next Barrel Man.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Jeanne_S]

Haaaaa! Yeah :rofl:A blast from the past…may he Rest In Peace!

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

Beware of drawing generalizations based on what you read in the CA Forums!

This is generally good advice.

 

[phil19034]

It might be okay in some of the really poor neighborhoods where the lector is obviously not very well off, but those are precisely the people who would make the effort to wear a button-down shirt or whatever nicer clothing they had.

Yeap! It’s amazing how many poor parishes I’ve seen where people tend to dress more formal than in rich parishes.

 

[Cirdan_XII]

Political diversity is not about old and young , black and white . Political diversity means you get progressives and conservatives , libertarians and liberals etc uniting in a joint cause . BLM is anything but that .

It doesn’t take an expert to see who is welcomed by BLM and who is considered the enemy . Yes I have tried to talk to them and not only did they clearly reject respectful and logical discourse but they were quick to call me all sorts of names. Some borderline racist .

This is an organisation that thrives on hate and division . If you’re not one of them or just like them, you are their enemy .

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

The local BLM shirt wearers where I live? I dare not talk to them. Too many incidents of them talking down to everyone who isn’t them. They’re not trying to win us over with messages of peace and love and it is not possible to have a dialogue with them that doesn’t descend into a one sided and vituperative monologue on their part.

There may be peaceniks among them around here, but not that I can tell. Which is why I made the point in a different thread that if one wears a BLM shirt and intends the peaceful message, one needs more context on that shirt to communicate that, otherwise most people are going to take that message closer to how I’ll take it than what the “peaceful” person intended.

Yeap! It’s amazing how many poor parishes I’ve seen where people tend to dress more formal than in rich parishes.

I did volunteer work in the Philippines and saw that same conduct over there. The men in the poor neighborhoods might only have one pair of long pants; that’s what they wore to Mass on Sundays. If they owned a pair of shoes (and a fair number didn’t), they wore that in lieu of flip flops usually worn during the week. Made an impression on me. I never wore shorts or flip flops to Mass after that, even at the height of summer.

 

[GKMotley]

As I learned from getting up close and personal with the New Left on campus, 55 years ago, such folk don’t want to be heard, they want to be obeyed.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Political diversity is not about old and young , black and white . Political diversity means you get progressives and conservatives , libertarians and liberals etc uniting in a joint cause . BLM is anything but that .

A Pew Research Center poll says otherwise. It says that 40% of Republicans or Republican-leaning Americans either strongly support or somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement. That’s not as high as Democrats, but it is enough to show that the movement does have diversity of support.

Now if you are going to complain that there is no support from the more extreme wing of the political right, that goes without saying. It is a matter of their core beliefs that such movements are bad. You can’t really expect support from them.

 

[Hodos]

“I obviously have neither the power nor the desire to dictate what clothing a person wears to church. On the other hand, I don’t wish to see a T-shirt become a source of division among my parishioners”

I can’t find any fault with this logic. Similarly, I would not want a pastor or deacon wearing a MAGA hat or Biden hat while leading the divine service. It just isn’t appropriate in that context. Christ should be the center of attention in the divine service.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I see from the article that the lector in question who wouldn’t stop wearing the shirt is 68 years old and transferred to a more “progressive” parish after he was told to stop wearing the shirt while he lectored.

Those two things tell me everything I need to know about this man.

 

[Phemie]

When i was a lector, my parish had a dress code. Black pants/skirt, plain white top.

That’s the dress code for the volunteers at my theatre, to which they add the burgundy vest we provide.

Our parish has no dress code for ministers and I’ve seen some skin-tight, midriff revealing things on the teen readers. and I’ve seen some women wear shorts to be a reader and to serve at the altar when there are no vested youth servers. IMHO, if you’re an adult serving at the altar you should be vested just like the youth are. If there’s no “server’s alb” that fits, wear one of the other albs.