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Friday, December 28, 2018

THE PROBLEM WITH MODERN PARTIAL DRESS FOR MASS

We have commented on big sleeved poofy, voofy albs. But if a priest insists on wearing one or has no money to purchase a new, more disciplined sleeved alb, shouldn’t he at least wear a long sleeved clerical shirt, black or white, if not a cassock to prevent this horrific partially naked look at Mass?



7 comments:

Unknown said...

Who is that dreadful priest? Delete that pic immediately.

Joseph Johnson said...

Most attorneys (myself included) and other professional men whomt I have worked around throughout my career wear long-sleeved dress shirts for work.

Generationally speaking, I wore short-sleeved dress shirts in hot weather at Catholic parochial school as a boy but stopped wearing them in my teen years when I started earning my own money and buying my own clothes. Many men in my dad's generation preferred to wear short-sleeved dress shirts in hot weather (along with that certain style of wingtip shoes with the thick "running-board" soles). My peers and I preferred to go back to the way it was in my grandfathers' generation's younger years (before World War II) when there were only long-sleeved dress shirts and cap-toe and wingtip shoes which had "normal" leather soles and not those thick-soled brogue wingtips like they wore in the 50's and 60's. We also hated the extremely wide ties, tie knots and coat lapels of the 1970's as well as all the nasty textured double-knit polyester. Give me medium or lightweight worsted wool for dark business suits anytime and cotton poplin or seersucker for light summer suits.

I would think that most priests who are post-1970's in their thinking and tastes would parallel us men in the secular callings and would also only wear long-sleeve clerical shirts (preferably the neckband, or "tunic," style which requires two collar studs and a separate rabat clerical collar). The black neckband shirt with white collar and black collarette could be worn with or without a coat or cassock and the white shirt and collar of the same style would be strictly for wear with cassock or coat and clerical vest (or with black collarette and black shirt front). Why is there any need for any other style of clerical shirt? The tab collar version, while acceptable in its long sleeve version only dates back to about 1960 and just doesn't look as nice (in my opinion) as the rabat collared version with the crisp white collar showing around the top of the collarette, cassock or clerical vest.

My pastor usually wears the black tab collar shirt and I salute him for wearing his clericals regularly! Recently, though, I complimented him when he wore a rabat collar and collarette and he said he called it his "cheater collar" because he was not wearing it attached to a neckband shirt---it was only a short rabat (dickey) attached to the collar and he was wearing it with a sweater!

rcg said...

At The University of the South third year and senior students wear robes to class. In the swealtering heat and humidity a common adaptation was to get a dress shirt that may be stained or freyed below the visible area and cut it off chest level. The same for the tie. The sleeves remained but the armpit area had to go.

Anonymous said...

Yes, gross !

TJM said...

What a slob. I imagine the "Mass" he says is equally sloppy.

Priests should wear a cassock under the alb/amice/stole/chasuble. Tying on a maniple would be a nice touch. I notice younger priests are generally better vested than their elders who are victims of Vatican Disaster II-itis

Anonymous said...

Our bishop always just wears a clerical shirt with short sleeves. Yes, it is tacky, but I do not think he would take kindly to being corrected. He has a BIG ego.

On the issue of albs, a friend recently sent me an online magazine of the Augustinian Order. Her son is in that order. They do no wear albs when they concelebrate. They just put a stole over their habit. I have seen other orders do this as well. I remember one time reading that this was not permitted. The habit and the alb have two different purposes.

rcg said...

Would this make the priest in the photo a Hairy Christian???