Wearing a Altar Server Cassock to church

[Mason21]

I would like to know if I could wear my cassock from home to church when I am alter servering . Is that ok? ( I would put on my surplus when I get to church

Thanks

 

[edward_george1]

I’m sorry, but that really wouldn’t be appropriate. The cassock is clerical attire, and it is allowed for servers to wear them when they are serving, but that’s it. There’s no good reason for you to wear it outside of Mass.

The advice of PracticallyCatholic is incorrect. I don’t know a priest on earth who would say you can wear your cassock outside of serving.

-Fr ACEGC

 

[EmilyAlexandra]

While I assume that Father @edward_george1 has this covered, I am curious to know why you want to do this and also what your journey from home to church is like.

For example, is there some practical explanation such as the weather? Is it that you want to be able to wear your cassock without a lot of clothes underneath because it is extremely hot where you live? I remember a choral scholar at an Oxford college who had an ingenious item that he wore under his cassock in the summer: it was just the top of a shirt cut off above his shoulders. This way he could wear a collar and tie with nothing else under his cassock and didn’t get too hot. I am assuming that he took responsibility for washing the cassock!

Or is it that you have a lot of things to carry to church with you and carrying the cassock in addition would be impossible, so the only practical option is to wear the cassock?

I’m also curious how far you would be travelling in your cassock. Do you live in a village where it takes you 1 minute to walk to church and everybody in the village knows you and knows that you are an altar server, or do you live in a major city where you commute for an hour on three different modes of public transport to get to church?

None of this changes the answer you received, but I am just curious as to why you have to ask this question.

Also, I didn’t know that it was the norm for servers to have their own cassocks. I just assumed that you all wore whatever the church provided and left them in the vestry. However, perhaps I am influenced by English church choirs.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I’m sorry, but that really wouldn’t be appropriate. The cassock is clerical attire, and it is allowed for servers to wear them when they are serving, but that’s it. There’s no good reason for you to wear it outside of Mass.

The advice of PracticallyCatholic is incorrect. I don’t know a priest on earth who would say you can wear your cassock outside of serving.

-Fr ACEGC

Precisely. I wish to add my voice as a priest to that of Father @edward_george1.

I suppose it would be one thing if your house was a few doors from the church where you serve Mass, as can happen in some of the smaller towns and villages of Europe…but I would say, even in that rare instance, that the Mass Servers would not wear the cassock without the surplice also being on precisely because the cassock alone is properly a clerical garment. It was the custom for its use to be extended to altar boys who were supplying the function of serving Mass as well as choir boys – but in these latter decades, other attire that distinguishes those serving from wearing clerical garments has been preferred; I have supported this movement.

Finally, I would just add that it really does present a disturbing issue when those who are not clerics, not seminarians and not Religious adopt vesture that conveys that they are such…it’s disturbing to the clergy and disturbing to people who are being misled by a misrepresentation. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, it often becomes an unpleasant issue all the way around.

 

[TomH1]

I want to add a question that has not so far come up. I agree with both priests who has thus far contributed to the thread. My fear would also be that thus could possibly be some form of inappropriate statement saying, ‘look at me’.

Anyway, to my question. Why is your cassock at home? When I was an altar server we used to wear a cassock and a cotta before what we wore was changed to alb and cincture. I never took my cassock home. When it was not being worn it hung in a wardrobe in the sacristy.

 

[Mason21]

I am a MC at multiple churches

 

[TomH1]

This was not what your OP said.

I would hope an MC would not use phrases like ‘altar servering’. I would also hope one knew that a surplice was worn rather than a ‘surplus’.

Even if you are an MC at more than one church I still wonder why (a) each one does not provide you with whatever they want you to wear and (b) that you feel the need to wear it going to church rather than carrying it.

 

[gotDoug]

Anyway, to my question. Why is your cassock at home? When I was an altar server we used to wear a cassock and a cotta before what we wore was changed to alb and cincture. I never took my cassock home. When it was not being worn it hung in a wardrobe in the sacristy.

When I was an altar server, all the altar servers at my parish took their albs home. They were responsible for washing and ironing them (or at least their parents were). I assume this was because our parish did not have a person responsible for washing the albs and vestments in the sacristy.

 

[Jen95]

It is my understanding that cassock and surplice are not the right attire for serving at the altar anyway. Cassock and surplice are “choir dress”, not for the sanctuary, I have been told. An alb is the historical vesture for servers.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

It is my understanding that cassock and surplice are not the right attire for serving at the altar anyway. Cassock and surplice are “choir dress”, not for the sanctuary, I have been told. An alb is the historical vesture for servers.

Your historical understanding is not correct. The use of the alb is a recent development to move away from what had been the prior norm…that boys and teens in the past wore a cassock and a surplice when serving Mass.

In those days (in my case, we are talking five decades ago) if there was no altar boy who had arrived for one of my Masses, then a man who had once been an altar boy came forward, either when I was lighting the candles or when Mass began, and served Mass in whatever he had worn to Mass.

We did not have adult sized cassocks and surplices because Mass was served by boys/young men and what was on hand was sized for them. In places where there were not altar boys – military chaplains at sea, hospital chaplains – a man supplied the function. In Religious houses of men, one of the Religious served Mass. In houses of Religious women, Mass went without a server.

I have been in parishes, subsequent to the Council, where adult men served the Mass and they wore cassocks and surplices (which they owned and cared for) and having adults serve or serve with youth was, frankly, a system I preferred. They were there because they wanted to be there and serious about the undertaking. That was crucial help during more complex liturgies, which they grasped better.

With the change in 1994 which allowed women to serve as altar servers – which I welcomed with great enthusiasm – the change in many places from cassocks and surplices to albs or other vesture accelerated. Again because the cassock is a clerical garment.

It remains my preference than seminarians alone serving Mass should wear the cassock and surplice and that others wear something else.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Cassock and surplice are “choir dress”,

Oh…a final point – cassock and surplice are indeed choir dress…but choir dress is for the sanctuary. It refers to what a cleric wears at a liturgy at which he is in the sanctuary but is not presiding or concelebrating or at some other event at which he is assisting in the sanctuary without presiding such as vespers or benediction. A seminarian, deacon or simple priest would wear cassock and surplice. Those of us of higher rank have other accoutrements to add to the cassock and surplice.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

When I was an altar server, all the altar servers at my parish took their albs home. They were responsible for washing and ironing them (or at least their parents were). I assume this was because our parish did not have a person responsible for washing the albs and vestments in the sacristy.

I see this as a welcomed change from days past. You are right that there are places which have not the manpower/womanpower of days past. When we had cassocks and surplices on hand in parishes to fit children from six to eighteen, that was a lot of cassocks and surplices to run through the washing machine. In places where I was, that would happen three or maybe four times a year, typically organized by the altar society.

The system by which the person possesses and cares for their own is, in my opinion, better. They can see when it needs laundering – which can vary with frequency of use. It also allows the person to be the only one who wears his or her garment.

 

[edward_george1]

I do not think I did what you are proposing here.

The cassock is an item of clerical attire. That is a statement of fact.

It is allowed for those who are not clerics to wear that kind of clerical attire when serving in what is or has been at some point in history, a clerical function, as in serving at the altar and even singing in a choir.

Deacons are clerics, and should wear clerical attire. This includes the cassock.

Your objections seem a bit nitpicky. But hey, what would the last hours of CAF be without lay people scolding priests over their unforgiveable imprecisions.

Good night all, and God bless.

 

[catholic03]

This is not fact. It is just entirely wrong minded. It is proper to entire institutes of the non-ordained while not performing ‘clerical functions.’ In charity perhaps you are entitled to your own alternative facts.

But hey, what would the last hours of CAF be without high minded clericalism being allowed to run rampant over the non-ordained.

Really? This is your first post, about a day before the forum closes? Criticising a priest?

Edit to add: Given your username, @Laitymatter, I’d say you created the account just to make that comment.

 

[stpurl]

Oh great, “laity”. We were afraid all the trolls had left but here you are.
@edward_george1, please don’t let this troll be one of your last memories here. Please know that you, Don Ruggero, InThePew, and all have given us REAL laity so much hope. You are a blessing. Thank you.

 

[paperwight]

@edward_george1, please don’t let this troll be one of your last memories here. Please know that you, Don Ruggero, InThePew, and all have given us REAL laity so much hope. You are a blessing. Thank you.

This, times a thousand and more.

 

[ChuckB]

But hey, what would the last hours of CAF be without lay people scolding priests over their unforgiveable imprecisions.

 

[on_the_hill]

When I was an altar server, all the altar servers at my parish took their albs home. They were responsible for washing and ironing them (or at least their parents were). I assume this was because our parish did not have a person responsible for washing the albs and vestments in the sacristy.

When I was an altar server we did it both ways. For the first couple years that I served, there were ‘communal’ cassocks, and we’d go pick one before Mass. It often ended up with really mismatched sizes, when one kid would practically be tripping over his and the other’s would be halfway up his calves.

Then they bought each altar server his own cassock. A couple ladies measured us for size. Those cassocks we’d take back and forth from church. No one ever considered wearing one outside of the actual church building.