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Fascias & Grown-Up Servers

Northern_SacristanNorthern_Sacristan Shipmate Posts: 5
in Ecclesiantics
The time has come for my superannuated cassock to be replaced...
In our parishes (Roman) the smaller Minions of the Sacristy wear servers cassocks but mine was given to me many years ago by a priest, who found it in a cupboard and is a rather more upmarket job, so I'm looking at replacing it with something similarly comfortable.
One reaches an age and stature where a larger size servers cassock looks a little ill-fitting!

Now, the other grown-up server at the other end of the parish also has a proper cassock, but wanders around with a black fascia, which I do not. Our PP seems not to notice it's use, but that's not quite a canonical decision...

I'm interested in both the custom in the Italian Mission regarding the wearing of the facia by (Grown-Up) servers, and also in concrete legislation either way regarding it's use.

Is it part of the furniture of a cassock in general? Or does it belong more to the form of cassock that may be worn by secular clergy in England & Wales? Or neither of those things?
Is it a case of the PP not objecting to the other chap taking it upon himself to wear one (in which case I would abstain when purchasing a new cassock, being a by-the-book sort of chap) or am I free to wear one, or not, as I choose?

Thanks in advance!

Comments

  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    They are a part of clerical dress, so strictly "no."
    https://forums.catholic.com/t/may-an-mc-wear-a-fascia/243264/2

    The entire order of the universe depends on these rules being observed, of course!
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate
    Alan29 wrote: »
    They are a part of clerical dress, so strictly "no."
    https://forums.catholic.com/t/may-an-mc-wear-a-fascia/243264/2

    The entire order of the universe depends on these rules being observed, of course!

    Or, even more importantly, the prevention of tears from the baby Jesus and his most blessed mother.
  • Northern_SacristanNorthern_Sacristan Shipmate Posts: 5
    Alan29 wrote: »
    They are a part of clerical dress, so strictly "no."
    https://forums.catholic.com/t/may-an-mc-wear-a-fascia/243264/2

    The entire order of the universe depends on these rules being observed, of course!
    Is not the cassock part of clerical dress too though? We wear that because it's like liturgical undercoat, with everything else on top, buy we laity only serve in the absence of clerics. We just wear Choir Dress as the lowest rung of that?
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Northern_Sacristan wrote: »
    Alan29 wrote: »
    They are a part of clerical dress, so strictly "no."
    https://forums.catholic.com/t/may-an-mc-wear-a-fascia/243264/2

    The entire order of the universe depends on these rules being observed, of course!
    Is not the cassock part of clerical dress too though? We wear that because it's like liturgical undercoat, with everything else on top, buy we laity only serve in the absence of clerics. We just wear Choir Dress as the lowest rung of that?

    But there are degrees of choir dress - ask anyone who is entitled to wear purple.
  • Northern_SacristanNorthern_Sacristan Shipmate Posts: 5
    Ah, that's my point though, as regards the facia (and as a point of interest as much as anything else) there's rather a lack of primary info on what it is and isn't, in relation to a cassock.

    I've worn purple, when I lived in our cathedral's parish. Colour/Piping is a ranking thing and the rules on that are more readily available. A purple cassock isn't a different thing, it's the same thing in purple. So, we can find regulations for various colours on facias in the same way we don't regs for colours on cassocks, but little or nothing for the plain black of either.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    Back in the day I used to host Ecclesiantics, we used to have a poster who asked repeated questions on clerical dress and I found an ancient book that specified right down to ecclesiastical socks - which I cited in answer to such questions. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the book. Does anyone else who saw it cited happen to remember ?
  • angloidangloid Shipmate
    I read the title as 'Fascists and Grown-up servers', and I have encountered those that were both.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Back in the day I used to host Ecclesiantics, we used to have a poster who asked repeated questions on clerical dress and I found an ancient book that specified right down to ecclesiastical socks - which I cited in answer to such questions. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the book. Does anyone else who saw it cited happen to remember ?

    Dammit no ... but if ever you find it in a brown paper bag in a dark corner feel free to post it beyond 45 South
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    (checks bio data and discovers he's changed his bio to "coldness and beauty." Oh well. It may never reach me now. :cry: )
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Back in the day I used to host Ecclesiantics, we used to have a poster who asked repeated questions on clerical dress and I found an ancient book that specified right down to ecclesiastical socks - which I cited in answer to such questions. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the book. Does anyone else who saw it cited happen to remember ?

    I suspect you're thinking of Fortescue and O'Connell - The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described which is the handbook for liturgical practice that harks back to pre-Vatican II days, and talks about everything you could ever think of doing in church.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    I seem to recall it had only one author, if I could find one of the altimeter threads on the old ship I might be able to find it.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Isn’t it often referred to simply as Fortescue?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited December 2019
    Nainfa’s Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church: According to Roman Etiquette, I found it cited in this article. The text is here. It was published in about 1909, so I don’t know if it is still valid. But it really seemed to cover all the minutiae.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    FYI, I was surprised there was no chapter on the Fascia, looked a little closer and discovered it covered in great detail in the chapter entitled “.cincture”.

    @Northern_Sacristan Nainfa has all the regulations you could wish about colour, fabric, piping, what to do when you’re in mourning etc etc - though I don’t know if he is right. He mentioned cinctures of certain types being specially given for particular chapters - don’t know if that would be relevant to understanding the other guy’s choice of regalia.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Nainfa’s Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church: According to Roman Etiquette, I found it cited in this article. The text is here. It was published in about 1909, so I don’t know if it is still valid. But it really seemed to cover all the minutiae.

    (Shoulda checked that forum link earlier in the thread, the book I’ve linked is the one they’ve cited !)
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Nainfa’s Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church: According to Roman Etiquette, I found it cited in this article. The text is here. It was published in about 1909, so I don’t know if it is still valid. But it really seemed to cover all the minutiae.

    I suspect it is probably only of archeological interest.
    This seems to be in line with current legislation. shetlersites.com/clericaldress/
    But it makes no mention of lay folk.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited December 2019
    That articles states:
    The simplification of clerical dress for the Roman Church following the Second Vatican Council has been promulgated in three documents, which together comprise the current body of ecclesiastical law on this question. The first is the Instruction of the Secretariat of State of 31 March 1969 Ut sive sollicite (hereafter USS), on the dress, titles, and coats-of-arms of Cardinals, Bishops, and lesser Prelates. The second is the Circular Letter of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy of 30 October 1970 Per Instructionem (hereafter PI), on the reform of choir dress, which applies the prescriptions of USS to Canons, Beneficiaries, and Pastors, and by explicit extension to all other categories of ecclesiastics. Neither of these documents sets out synthetic schemata of the forms of dress of all secular clergy of the Roman Rite, but rather they amend the pre-existing paradigms.

    For the pre-conciliar paradigms amended by the above documents, and for the perduring sartorial customs of the Roman Rite concerning details about which these documents are silent, older works must be relied upon, the best of which is Nainfa's Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church.

    The three Church documents and Nainfa's book are the sole sources of the prescriptive information provided below.

    It’s where I originally found the citation of Nainfa.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    Footnote 36 is of the most direct relevance to the OP:
    In most places it was previously understood that the sash may only be worn by those simple priests who exercise a real jurisdiction, namely: Vicars General, Judicial, Episcopal, and Forane; Moderators of the Curia, Chancellors, Rectors of seminaries, and Pastors. Nainfa presents this as the only legitimate custom (cf. pp. 58-59), but even in his day it was not universally followed. It has become more common to see other priests, and even seminarians, use the sash, but this practice is still regarded as incorrect in some places.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    [tangent]

    Shouldn’t you be wearing an alb with a rope cincture anyway ?

    [/tangent]
  • Northern_SacristanNorthern_Sacristan Shipmate Posts: 5
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Footnote 36 is of the most direct relevance to the OP:
    In most places it was previously understood that the sash may only be worn by those simple priests who exercise a real jurisdiction, namely: Vicars General, Judicial, Episcopal, and Forane; Moderators of the Curia, Chancellors, Rectors of seminaries, and Pastors. Nainfa presents this as the only legitimate custom (cf. pp. 58-59), but even in his day it was not universally followed. It has become more common to see other priests, and even seminarians, use the sash, but this practice is still regarded as incorrect in some places.

    It'd a minefield, isn't it? We've had celibacy and jurisdiction quoted, and the problem that most descriptive rules are for Before the Changes, with amendments rarely clarifying what they're amending.

    I understoood the Pellegrina to be a matter of jurisdiction, although the particular privileges of English secular clergy after 1850* muddy the waters there, but I recall reading that's why Pope Benedict no longer wears one, but then he also does not wear a facia (although his cassock has the loops for it)

    *Wear what the pope wears but in black. But again no distinction between actual clergy and stand in clergy.

    Wot Larks!

  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Northern_Sacristan wrote: »
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Footnote 36 is of the most direct relevance to the OP:
    In most places it was previously understood that the sash may only be worn by those simple priests who exercise a real jurisdiction, namely: Vicars General, Judicial, Episcopal, and Forane; Moderators of the Curia, Chancellors, Rectors of seminaries, and Pastors. Nainfa presents this as the only legitimate custom (cf. pp. 58-59), but even in his day it was not universally followed. It has become more common to see other priests, and even seminarians, use the sash, but this practice is still regarded as incorrect in some places.

    It'd a minefield, isn't it? We've had celibacy and jurisdiction quoted, and the problem that most descriptive rules are for Before the Changes, with amendments rarely clarifying what they're amending.

    I understoood the Pellegrina to be a matter of jurisdiction, although the particular privileges of English secular clergy after 1850* muddy the waters there, but I recall reading that's why Pope Benedict no longer wears one, but then he also does not wear a facia (although his cassock has the loops for it)

    *Wear what the pope wears but in black. But again no distinction between actual clergy and stand in clergy.

    Wot Larks!

    Thought we were discussing grown up altar boys, not popes ........
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Doublethink wrote: »
    [tangent]

    Shouldn’t you be wearing an alb with a rope cincture anyway ?

    [/tangent]

    I do when acting as an innocent little altar boy or crucifer, the cincture's colour changing seasonally of course.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    So when does one wear one of those white cummerbund thingies (I never have, I hasten to add, less in doing so I incurred the Tears of the Baby).

    Kuruman, incidentally (to whom I am lawful wed) refuses to wear a cincture, as she maintains it makes her look pregnant, a status to which she has no desire to return.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    Well as it’s meant to indicate chastity ....
  • TheOrganistTheOrganist Shipmate
    The vestment suppliers in the UK tend to refer to the rope thingies as "girdles": they reserve the term "cincture" for the 4 inch stiffened cloth band that has tasselled ends.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Doublethink wrote: »
    Well as it’s meant to indicate chastity ....

    :joy:
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