Dear Rev. Know it all;

I just love seeing nuns who wear the traditional religious habit. However, you never see a nun anymore (at least one who is uncloistered) that still wears their habit in public. I see the habit as an outward sign of her devotion to Christ and I see it as the nun  trying to imitate the blessed Virgin Mary. Why is it that nuns have almost completely abandoned their habit for lay people's clothing? Is it because of Vatican II? I just wish they would go back  to their habit.

Beatrice Fuddled

Dear Bea,

Your question is quite easy to answer, but the answer brings up more questions. The Vatican Council said nothing about religious or clerical dress, as far as I can remember, but it did emphasize the role of the laity (laity; from the Greek word, "laos" i.e. “the people”). Some religious took from that, the idea in order to emphasize the role of the laity, it was necessary to deemphasize the role of the clergy, thus the rejection of clerical dress and religious habit. The second reason is a bit more complicated. 

Clerical dress was forbidden in the early Church! Yes forbidden! Back in the glory days of the Council, we were all trying to reconstruct the early Church. If we could just reconstruct the early Church it would all be fine. This was the premise of the reformation and one of the foundation stones of Protestantism, by the way. We all know how that worked out. The division of the Church and the death of millions in the subsequent religious wars in Europe. You can't reconstruct the early Church because you can't reconstruct Greco Roman society. 

The early equivalent of clerical dress was simplicity of dress. Romans wore lots of bling. It was not uncommon for a wealthy Roman to wear rings on every finger. Clement of Alexandria (circa 200 AD) allowed a Christian to wear one ring, and that was for business purposes. Remember that a ring with a distinctive seal acted like a modern credit card. The early Church did not practice clerical dress, but rather clerical non-dress. The leaders of the Christian community were to be known for their simplicity of life. Well, the enthusiastic reform after the council rejected “clericalism” and with it clerical dress, believing that this was a return to the spirit of the early Church. It was anything but.

I remember a group of nuns who were angry at the press coverage that the missionaries of Charity, the “Mother Theresa nuns” got when they moved into the west side. The first group of nuns, who wore no habit said that they had been there all along. Why should this new group have such a fanfare? Well, it struck me as funny that these nuns after working in the slum by day would hop into their cars and drive to their very nice homes in the suburbs. The Mother Theresa nuns  stayed in the slums, slept on the floor amidst the rats and roaches. Their simplicity was complete. The times have changed. Simplicity is not the same as it was in the days of the early Church. I believe that the religious habit for clergy and religious is more important now than it was in times past.

In a world that is all about choice, to have one basic black outfit makes a powerful statement. It used to be that the religious habit bestowed some privilege in a Christian society. Now, in a place like Ireland,  if a priest wears his clerical collar in public he is likely to be spat at. The wearing of clerical dress in our times is a public statement that “I don’t belong to this current age” and I think that is very much a part of the reason for the outfit.

For the clergy (in this word permit me to include women religious) to pretend that they are not clergy in no way emphasizes the role of the laity. It co-opts it. In other words, for me to pretend I'm just “one of the guys” diminishes who I am and who they are. My calling is to be a sign in the world that there is something beyond this world. The calling of the laity is to be the presence of Christ in the world and to bring the world to conversion. The council wanted to get the laity to do their job, but a lot of people think the council wanted the laity to do  the clergy's job.

A case in point: the so called extra-ordinary ministers of Communion. The Pope and the Bishops allow non-ordained people to distribute Holy Communion when there are not enough priests and deacons available to do so. That has created the situation in which some Ministers of Communion get indignant if an extra priest shows up and they don't get to exercise their “ministry” of distributing Communion. I have often seen priests and deacons “sit Communion out” while the laity distributed Communion. They don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. We are all here to serve, and the good servant serves by doing his or her job, not someone else’s. My job as a pastor  (a word which means shepherd) is to feed the sheep.  I do so primarily by giving Holy Communion.

There are lots of examples to which one could point, but the heart of it is, that we Americans look at things in terms of power. The Lord looks at them in terms of service. I cannot tell you how I hate going to the super market dressed in clerical clothing, but still I go. Part of my calling in these times is to be publicly part of a hated hierarchy. The very word explains my meaning. Most people think that hierarchy means chain of command, requiring the unswerving and blind obedience of the military. It does not. Hierarchy is a Greek word that means sacred leadership, leadership established by God.

The first sacred leadership is very simple: Mom and Dad. The Church too is meant by God to be a family. You know who Mom and Dad are in the home. They're the ones who wear the wedding rings. So too, you know who Mom and Dad are in the Church. They are  the ones who wear the black clothes. The Reformation/Modern American model is that the ones ordained have all the power. The authentically Catholic model is that the ones ordained (or in vows) are there to nurture and to serve. The repudiation of clerical dress by some of the clergy was meant to make the clergy available. It has had the opposite effect. It makes us hidden and distant. So, dear Beatrice, I don’t know that clerical dress makes a priest or nun automatically more like Christ, but it should be a sign to the world and the Church that leadership is meant to serve and that we are publicly available in a sad and lonely time in human history.

yours,

the Rev Know it all