A reader alerted me to this from The Telegraph.
Priests [not] stage fashion show
The latest fashions among the clergy were on display in Devon as local priests [not] swapped pulpits for the catwalk.
Clergy Catwalk Show at Westpoint, showing off the cloths form the cloth is – Reverend Wiz Slater, [You wouldn’t be able to make this up fast enough, would you.] curate [curette?] at St Michael’s CofE Stoke Gifford Photo: SWNSThe ecclesiastical event was a showcase of the latest designs of religious gowns in various colours, patterns, shapes and textures.
Several priests [not] acted as ‘models’ to strut the cat walk in front of hundreds of clergy at the exhibition.
One model, The Rev James Hutchings, said: "I’ve done nothing like this before. [ugh] It has certainly caused lots of laughs in the parish.
"My children thought it was hilarious. They probably won’t ask me back. My pirouette was terrible."
Designers featured in the show including J Wippell Ltd, of Exeter, Juliet Hemingway and Shinglers of Sutton.
Ms Hemingway, who has designed vestments for George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, told the Express and Echo: "Women clergy have brought a fresh look to garments.
"They are not as willing to put up with dirty, worn-out robes. I think this has rubbed off on male clergy." [This is why we need The Sacristines, not female clergy.]
Reverend Hilary Dawson, Church of England curate in the Netherexe Mission Community, near Exeter, modelled various designs. She told the newspaper she had bought four stoles from Juliet Hemingway.
"My stoles say something about my faith, the place in which I am serving and, most of all, point to the gospel of Christ," she said. "My green stole, for example, reflects the water and hills [blech] of my new home and parishes."
Okay… I can understand how you might have a parish catechesis event where you show children and interested adults vestments and clerical garb so that they understand better what it is… but in a Catholic context this would strikes me as sacrilegious.
What’s next? Pole dancing and a return to ritual temple prostitution?
I am reminded of the phrase of the late Fr. Neuhaus, namely, that the C of E exists in order to make irony redundant. This sort of thing sure bolsters that sad observation.
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“Reverend Wiz Slater”
So much for valid Anglican Holy Orders.
I\’ve seen better chasubles (or rather \”gowns\” and \”robes,\” as the author puts it) at my local \”Spirit of Vatican II\” parish!
I can\’t decide whether this is side-splittingly hilarious or hopelessly sad.
Oh, so much vanity….
Great comment from Fr. Neuhaus, BTW.
Totally bonkers, dumb, stupid, immature, etc., etc., etc.! Quick, somebody send for the team of Stacey and Clinto from “What Not to Wear”! They’d throw that stuff in the trash in a flash — and these ladies would make quite a show in the 360degree mirror. Oh my …
“The Catholic Church is for Saints and Sinners. For respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.” – Oscar Wilde
Looks like ‘respectable’ was chucked out the window.
I don’t know, the women CofE ministers looked quite fetching in albs, stoles, chausables, and even copes as they processed into York Minster in a Roman Catholic Mass celebrating Mary Ward (29-Jan-2009). H.E.+Cormac, their Lordships +Drainey, +Roche, and several other bishops didn’t seem to mind that much.
Actually, the vestments of the CofE ministers and dean and chapter put our polyester-sporting clerics to shame. And then there was the liturgical dance…
I think I’ve been officially gobsmacked.
The green stole represents the water in your new parish?
I suppose that could explain a bit. It’s in the water.
If I recall correctly, Nero bathed in a lead-lined pool that turned the water green. Perhaps these priestettes are fiddling around while Anglicanism burns?
Just sayin’.
Stop!
Pictures make my eyes hurt!
How ’bout that! The equivalent of religious pornography.
another nudge to the TAC toward the Tiber
This demanded a demotivator:
What’s next? Pole dancing and a return to ritual temple prostitution?
I’m not sure any Anglican priestess I’ve ever seen would be qualified for those jobs.
But, Father – Think of the opportunity!
They probably had lots of blue vestments in the show. Put it on your wishlist now and I’m sure you’ll have it in time to wear for the feast day of Saint Melito!
I thought of Right Said Fred, singing:
“I’m too sexy for this vestment, too sexy for this vestment…”
Mary Ward. MARY WARD! These clownesses paraded at a Mass to celebrate the foundress of the IBVM, a member of a staunch recusant family who suffered for their faith – the niece of two gunpowder plotters (John and Christopher Wright). A woman who risked the censure of the Church for daring to educate women; who walked 1500 miles to Rome to petition the Pope; who was imprisoned by the Inquisition; whose life’s work was suppressed in her own lifetime; who suffered but who never lost her faith, and whose determination gave us generations of Catholic women doctors, lawyers, scientists, and teachers.
Any of the IBVM of the generation who taught me would have WIPED THE FLOOR with them, theologically, intellectually and quite probably physically, if these priestesses had dared to show their faces at a Catholic Mass during their lifetime. I could write more, but have just returned from a Mass that Mary Ward would have recognised, and must in christian charity refrain from commenting on the Catholic Bishops who permitted this. Please tell me that these wimmin were not on the altar at any stage.
Curette? Love it! As an Anglican I have to say that I have no problemm with priestesses but I am convinced that God DOES have problems with them and thus they don’t exist sacramentally.
You can see a video of this extravaganza here.
Totally bonkers, dumb, stupid, immature, etc., etc., etc.! Quick, somebody send for the team of Stacey and Clinto from “What Not to Wear”! They’d throw that stuff in the trash in a flash—and these ladies would make quite a show in the 360degree mirror. Oh my …,
I am almost afraid to admit I know this…
In England, the people you want are Trinny and Susannah of the original British version of “What Not to Wear”, who are far, far, more snarky, and much, much, less merciful than Stacey and Clinton.
There’s been a vogue for “individualistic” vestments in the Anglican Church at all levels, although, as usual, it’s the wealthy North Americans who are the trendiest. Katherine Jefforts-Schori, presiding bishop of the TEC, has appeared publically in much, much worse.
…Shouldn’t we get busy…?
“[I]f my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14 (RSV)
I think it is time we revive Fr. James Sullivan, OP’s idea of starting a Liturgical Holocaust Museum and put such wretched 60/70/80 & 90’s type of liturgical wear into this museum.
With apologies to our (far from tacky) host – I feel a new website coming online…
“What does the pray-er really wear? Tragically gauche liturgical apparel… . Perhaps we should install a catwalk in every parish so that the processional could be made more prominent(?).