Sir, - Recent references to clerical garb prompt me to dress some personal thoughts on this matter, measuring my musings somewhat on George Bernard's Shaw's dictum: "All dress is fancy dress, isn't it, except our natural skins?"
Far from decrying the feasibility of a distinctive attire for "men of the cloth" or honour where honour is due, it seems to me worth noting that the of-Hisvery-nature garmentless Creator of the entire cosmic fabric fleshed Himself, as it were, into ordinary Middle Eastern dress (tunic and cloak) and put clothing in its proper perspective when He reminded His followers (similarly attired) of how even Solomonic resplendence was left in the shade by the flowers of the field.
Having had a bellyful of often triumphalistic clerical drapery in the form of eye-catching sashes (humorously called "bellybands") with their tasselled appendages, enwrapping the midriffs of clerics of unusual importance, I am all for slashing the said sash together with its "variations" (e.g. the "old hat" unwieldly mitre, the "belt"-inflicting crozier, the ring - long minus its almost compulsively oscular importance). Such finery can so easily give the impression of ostentatious sashaying on the part of the belted brotherhood and, indeed, some folk would say such sashes only serve to advertise abominably unhealthy abdominal protuberances.
In our current high-tech, space-probe day and age, sartorial symbolism has lost its power to an almost ruthless insistence on the bottom-line importance of naked inner personal worth. A goodly bonfire of clerical vanities - highlighted by honorific titles and their concomitant "gear" - would be warmly welcomed by the people of God. - Yours, etc.,
Fr Pat Deighan, Laytown, Co Meath.