{"id":23338,"date":"2019-06-19T07:18:41","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T07:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/?p=23338"},"modified":"2019-06-19T07:18:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T07:18:41","slug":"do-clerical-dress-and-monastic-habits-really-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/do-clerical-dress-and-monastic-habits-really-matter","title":{"rendered":"Do Clerical Dress and Monastic Habits Really Matter?\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I am a great fan of the BBC series \u201cCall the Midwife\u201d, which features a group of Anglican sisters working among the poor in a London neighbourhood as midwives.\u00a0\u00a0Their order is fictional, but is based upon the actual order and London experiences of the Community of St. John the Divine, then working in London and now moved to Birmingham.\u00a0\u00a0Being such a fan of the series, I wanted to check out the real community online.\u00a0\u00a0Their numbers are fewer now, as the community has been reduced to five elderly women.\u00a0\u00a0What interested me was that unlike their BBC counterparts who wore a blue monastic habit, veil and wimple, the sisters today no longer wear a monastic habit, having dispensed with it since the days when they wore it in the 1960s.\u00a0\u00a0In this they are no different than other western monastic orders of nuns, including many Roman Catholic nuns, who since the days of Vatican II have also put aside their monastic habits and adopted secular dress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It reminded me of a similar phenomenon among the parish clergy.\u00a0\u00a0It used to be that a parish priest could be as readily identified on the street by his outward dress, just as monastics could be identified by theirs, at least in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox traditions.\u00a0\u00a0Anglican clergy wore a black suit, and a white collar (popularly called \u201ca dog collar\u201d), as did Roman Catholic clergy.\u00a0\u00a0Since the days of Vatican II, western clergy have begun dispensing with black suit and collar, and now cannot always be readily identified as clergy when on the street or not officiating at the altar.\u00a0\u00a0In some Anglican circles, this outward shedding of clerical dress has been also accompanied by a shedding the clerical title:\u00a0the clergyman is no longer \u201cRev. Smith\u201d or \u201cFather Smith\u201d.\u00a0Now he says, \u201cJust call me Bob.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0An exception is that of women clergy\u2014a priestess, in my experience, can usually be counted on to sport the clerical shirt and collar, thereby stressing her clerical status.\u00a0\u00a0I remember in particular one photo of a group of Anglican clergy:\u00a0\u00a0the male bishop and the male priests in the group photo all wore sport shirts and turtlenecks.\u00a0\u00a0The one female priest in the group wore a prominent clerical collar.\u00a0\u00a0As she doubtless intended, there was no mistaking her for a layperson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
Jan van Helmont – Nuns of the convent of the Black Canon<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, what\u2019s the deal with clerical dress and monastic habits?\u00a0\u00a0Do they really matter?\u00a0\u00a0Obviously there are things more important than the clothes on one\u2019s back, and no one suggests that one cannot be holy without clerical dress or that outer clerical dress automatically bestows inner sanctity.\u00a0\u00a0But I suggest that even so, such things do matter.\u00a0\u00a0The proof that they matter is that some have dispensed with them.\u00a0\u00a0No one who says of something, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, so we should get rid of it\u201d is really quite honest.\u00a0\u00a0If it really didn\u2019t matter, then one wouldn\u2019t be concerned about it one way or the other.\u00a0\u00a0Clearly the thing has some<\/em>\u00a0significance; it is that significance that the reformers are concerned to deny and ditch.\u00a0\u00a0When a Baptist says to me, \u201cIncense doesn\u2019t matter, so why use it?\u201d, and when I reply, \u201cIf it really doesn\u2019t matter, then let\u2019s keep it\u201d,\u00a0\u00a0it then becomes apparent that to him it matters a great deal, which is why he wants to get rid of it.\u00a0\u00a0So then we may ask:\u00a0what is the significance of monastic habit and clerical dress?<\/p>\n

It is not just that such habits and cassocks are hot to wear and can be uncomfortable in warm weather.\u00a0\u00a0That is true, but it is also true for the wearing of Eucharistic vestments in August, and no one suggests that we ditch them during the Eucharist in the summer in favour of an open neck sports shirt.\u00a0\u00a0If the sole perceived problem was merely that the clothes were too warm in summer, one would find the answer in lighter fabrics.\u00a0\u00a0Obviously the perceived problem lies elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Those monastics arguing in defense of secular dress (such as Sr. Marilyn Baker, a humbleand sincere nun of the Sisters of Providence) themselves state where they think the problem lies, and why they dispensed with their monastic habit.\u00a0\u00a0They report that they were \u201cadvised to become more part of the modern world\u201d, and so they complied by dispensing with their habits. That is, the shedding of the habit was part and parcel of the drive toward secularization, closing the distance between the Church and secular society.\u00a0\u00a0For obviously nuns such as the Sisters of Providence were already geographically \u201cpart of the modern world\u201d by virtue of them not living a completely enclosed life shut off from everyone else.\u00a0\u00a0They did not live as cloistered hermits, but lived and worked among others in society\u2014rather like the nuns featured on \u201cCall the Midwife\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0They just wore their habits while working as part of the modern world as a sign and pointer to another power beyond that of merely secular society.\u00a0\u00a0The directive to become more part of the modern world therefore referred to ideology, not geography.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is why the shedding of the habit (or, for Orthodox clergy, the cassock) is a mistake.\u00a0\u00a0It is true that the monastic or the clergyman knows who they are, and do not need the clothing to tell them that.\u00a0\u00a0But they do not wear that clothing in public for themselves, but for others.\u00a0\u00a0If it really is too warm to wear while weeding the garden, it can be dispensed with privately while doing the weeding.\u00a0\u00a0The different form of dress worn in public witnesses to the presence of the Church in society, and confirms that the Church is compassionately active in the modern world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than that, such clothing witnesses and manifests historical continuity.\u00a0\u00a0A habit is not just a bit of clothing, but a uniform, a link, one that stretches through space and time.\u00a0\u00a0It unites the wearer to all those others who wear the same uniform, bonding them together visibly as one single reality, wherever those others may live in other parts of the world.\u00a0\u00a0It also (and perhaps more importantly) unites the wearer to all those who have worn it in centuries past.\u00a0\u00a0A person in today\u2019s society sees a monastic habit and does simply think, \u201chere is a monastic\u201d, but also \u201chere is the presence of centuries of liturgical practice, and history, and tradition, and dogma\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It is this last that I suspect is the sticking point for those advising people like Sr. Marilyn to \u201cbecome more part of the modern world\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0In advising this they were not asking her to mix with the people around her more than she already was, but to close the ideological gap separating the Church and the World.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The true target of those advising ditching the habit was the dogma and tradition it represented, not the warm yards of cloth themselves.<\/p>\n

This is perhaps why, anecdotal evidence suggests, the western monastic orders which have dispensed with the habit are declining, while those which have retained it are growing. For secular people may applaud the church when it becomes secular and more like \u201cpart of the modern world\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But they will not join that church.\u00a0\u00a0Pro-choice people, for example, will be happy if the church adopts a pro-choice stance, but they will not get up out of bed and troop to that pro-choice church for liturgy on Sunday.\u00a0\u00a0Rather, they will roll over and sleep in, or else go jogging on Sunday morning, like all the other secular people.\u00a0\u00a0One joins a church or a monastic community precisely because it is in some way\u00a0unlike<\/em>\u00a0the modern world, and presents one with a clear alternative to secularism.\u00a0\u00a0The different clothing witnesses to the presence of this clear alternative\u2014one rooted in the past centuries and preserving its liturgical practice, history, tradition, and dogma.\u00a0\u00a0Wearing a cassock will not save the wearer, or even necessarily indicate that the wearer is spiritually healthy.\u00a0\u00a0As Christ warned us, Pharisees also like long robes (Luke 20:46).\u00a0\u00a0But a church intent on ditching the cassock to become more part of the modern world is church preparing to die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a great fan of the BBC series \u201cCall the Midwife\u201d, which features a group of Anglican sisters working among the poor in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-23338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-life-issues","tag-monasticism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/00-nuns-on-mount-of-olives-12-04-14-1.jpg","views":{"total":1359,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1767838531},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-64q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23338"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23348,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23338\/revisions\/23348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}