Mh... I thought among other things..vestments are mean't to cover you so as to shift attention from the person to his office. #Disturbing
Bingo! Give that "man" a sucker. (In Alabama, my home, a sucker is a sweet candy on a stick) The vestments are to help focus on Christ and God, not the priest. That women "priest" feel the need for this, shows the focus is not truly on Christ but themselves. Blessings, Fr. Mark
Is anyone aware that the Daily Mail is an acronym for (Malicious And Invidious Lies)? Why should female clergy not wish to avoid looking like crows perched on a cemetery railing, but like someone actually approachable about any matter of personal pastoral concern. The clothes shown here are deliberately selected by The Mail to be as 'news worthy' as possible. How else is it to titilate it's readership and fill its lucre coffers? There is nothing wrong with looking smart and approachable, without being superficially fashionable or 'showy'. Bishops have a nice shade of puce or purple for their shirts I believe, and green, dark blue or maroon make clergy look a bit less like ravens or Dracula, to the general public. When it comes to 'dressing up' A Bishop in full regalia, cope and mitre, crosier and all, takes a lot of beating. The CofE has a very long history of cross dressing. No pin-striped suits for us in church. It's traditional, going right back to Constantine. A flowing Alb or voluminous cassock and surplice can be extremely 'fetching'. in candle light. Very useful on cold winter nights and early mornings they must have been too, when churches and monasteries had no central heating, even in depth of winter.
Wonderful, androgynous articles of clothing straight out of Star Trek TNG. Here we see Fr. Picard and Fr. Riker modeling for us
Yeah, I'm a Star Trek fan, and even I wince at some of those 90's choices. And now I want to see SirPatStew depict a priest...