The mission as we called the parish had a feeding scheme to feed children from poor families, they taught at the local school, they ran a clinic and gave extramural activities for children after school. This community of Priests became the center of the life of the community. You cannot go to the village and nobody talks about the Roman Catholic church and its clergy they are a symbol of life in the neighbourhood.

During Lent you could see them in their cassocks either under a tree or walking with a Rosary in hand or reading a book, to me it gave such hope that God is living among us and hears our prayers.

It is such a pity that most people look at the Cassock as being a medivial garment that should be locked up in a museum. I think sometimes by wearing civilian clothes the clergy forget their calling and you will find them smoking or with a glass of alcohol because they are incognito. Let us wear this garment, and bring it back as a sign of vocation to our lives and those of the community where we live. So I agree with you the cassock is a symbol that needs to be resuscitated and celebrated.

I live in the Diocese of Arlington (VA), and priests wearing the cassock are not few and far between – especially the younger clergy.

As far as your arguments for the importance of meaningful symbolism, I wholeheartedly agree.

my favorite story from a priest is how he was driving down the interstate one day, and noticed a car pull alongside him at the same speed. he looked over and saw the driver gesturing for a blessing. the priest did so, and the other car then sped off into the distance.

another priest has mentioned how wearing the cassock sparks conversations in grocery stores, at gas stations, etc. it’s a good evangelistic tool that is underutilized in other traditions, i think.

i agree with the above poster that you should just wear yours. it may do more to save someone’s soul than any sermon you may ever preach.

I explain to my decidedly non-religious friends and family that it’s not a “dress,” it’s a long coat. That straightens it out surprisingly well in their heads.

Civilian wear is inappropriate for a priest; a priest works for God and has nothing to hide and no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed. If he is concerned with what others think, then he is not strong enough in his faith.

Christians are looking for leaders in the church–not buddies–and the cassock conveys the image of leadership. Dressing incognito is a side-effect of marxist culture and demeans the office of the clergy–as it is intended to do.

In addition, wearing a cassock demonstrates that there is a sacred quality to the priesthood and reminds us that life itself is sacred. The cassock conveys belief, confidence, authority: it is a sign that Christ is passing by us, a remembrance.

Straighten your backbone and start wearing your cassock.

I am “a died in the wool” fuddy duddy. That may be to my down fall. It is not clear whether my parents raised me that way but I am a true tradionalist. I do not even like the new praise music. It appaules me.

A uniform whether it be a nurse, police, butcher, doctor, or pastor has value and a true indication of deserved respect. Maybe it is my conscience but I have a built in automatic response to give my humble respect whether they deserve it or not.

Humbly submitted,

Gary Lindemann
Conyers, Ga.

You underline my point with what you say about McDonalds and WalMart. When we divest ourselves of symbols that point to universal truths, we will find ourselves awash in symbols that instead point to universal trivialities. The cassock was universal in what it pointed to, the reality of the priesthood, even as it was particular in that it came to be associated with the priest of the local parish, not just in terms of his ministry to the faithful but in also in terms of his place in the community. The Golden Arches are also universal, but what they point to is merely cheap, bad food, and there is no particularity to it at all since one McDonalds employee could be any other. In my town there is a particular convenience store / deli chain in which one orders sandwiches via a computer screen even though the people making the sandwiches are standing right in front of you. But the screen, it would seem, adds an extra layer of distance between the “consumer” and the person creating what is to be consumed.

Perhaps I focused too much on symbols of attire and not enough on other, larger symbols. But my point was that we have no sense of either the true universality or the true particularity of community living anymore. The disappearance of symbols like the cassock is a sign of that. It’s not that I don’t think that I could find a doctor or a police officer if I went to the right places. It’s that I have no sense of either the doctor or the police officer as distinct and necessary members of my community, part of the necessary life of that rare and dying breed known as the town. I can receive the generic service of “doctor” and “police” when I need them, but I have no sense of them as neighbors. I believe the same thing has happened to clergy, and in this respect I think we can include Protestant clergy as well. Am I the priest of this town or am I the local service provider for hatching, matching, and dispatching?

grace and peace,

Fr. Jonathan

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

Orthodox Christian priests in Alaska wear cossacks out among the general public. Our priests are then easily identifiable and more available to those who may need ministering out in the world. My husband who grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska; will often approach a priest or monk in public and ask for a blessing or prayer. A practice that seems to be fading.

Seeing our priests among us, attired in their cossacks; is a source of comfort for me. They stand out as beacons in this busy, distracted world; as well they should.

Jill in Alaska

Not quite clear on your point: is society more homogeneous or not? And do the symbols you notice signify anything about that homogeneity?

While Fr. Mitchican did mention the lack of social symbols in general, I took his main point to be the lack of a symbol for the sacramental set-apart-ness of priests. This is, after all, why priests were black suits and white collars, and have worn something different than everyone else since at least the four or five hundreds, A.D.

I think the difference for a Protestant would be that the minister is not seen to be sacramentally set apart, as an instrument of God different in kind from everyone else. If there is only the priesthood of all believers, and no sacramental priesthood, this makes sense.

–Dwight

I’m in Pittsburgh for the summer, and have gone to daily mass at the (R.C.) Cathedral these last two months. Of the five or six priests who say mass there, two to three wear a cassock more than half the time. Yes, they’re young, but I think the bishop here encourages the cassock, so I’d be surprised if there weren’t a number of others in the diocese.

The Oratorians that do campus ministry for U-Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon generally wear cassocks at all times in-house, and sometimes outside. The same is true of Oratorians I’ve met at Oxford & Birmingham, in the UK.

Opus Dei priests also always wear cassocks in-house.

In fact, almost all the R.C. priests I know under 35 either wear a cassock some of the time, or would like to. Granted, that adds up to only about 15-20 guys. Still, this portends well, no?

My thanks for a detailed and compelling explanation. I’m especially taken by your point concerning the possibility of traditional symbols becoming comic; I think this is one that I’ll have to chew on for a while, and which has significance well beyond the cassock.