Have I ever mentioned before that I actually was in the same room as Pope Paul VI's Papal tiara, the last one ever worn by a Pope, some years back? It was in a display under glass in the crypt at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. The placard didn't say how they got it, which I expected it to, because the story was always that it was sold with the proceeds going to the poor. However, I suppose one can assume that perhaps it was on loan from it's private owner, or that someone donated it back to the Church at some point.
Anyway, my only direct commentary on bishop's attire is that the miters are getting too short. They should be taller. That's about all I've got.
I might bring back the white gloves, too.
I often wonder how liturgical vestments and altar dressings and incense or lack therefore square with the philosophical difference between a transcendent and an imminent God. Do elaborate "high church" type ceremonies with billowing clouds of incense and ornate altars and such point towards a transcendent God far from the people as it is commonly assumed that they do? With the sort of corollary assumption that simpler vestments and other trappings symbolize immanence?
I am not sure that we have to view things through that prism. In a way, the more ornate and otherworldly the appearance, smells, sounds, tastes, and feel of a ceremony and a church, the more they convey God with us- immanence. To me, the fewer of those elements that are there, the more they convey transcendence by implication- the spaces and the ministers feel ordinary, and God feels far away. There are days when I wonder if I am the only human being on earth who feels that way.
Everyone else seems to think it's the other way around.
In any event, I think another aspect of this that isn't often addressed, but should be, is preserving cultural traditions. The mass or the Eucharist is the worship of God, a Thanksgiving, and a commemoration and spiritual communion with Calvary, the Last Supper, the Resurrection, and masses throughout time and space, forward and backward, a communal meal and a sacrifice, but it's also, separate from or in addition to those religious contexts, a ritual that comes from the Roman Empire down through the middle ages and down onto us. We are not just stewards of the purely religious aspects of religious ceremony, we are also stewards of a living culture and tradition with anthropological significance. That's important to preserve, and we shouldn't give it up. That's not to say that there can't be a more casual mass, or chasubles stitched from cheap fabrics by little old ladies at their homes in poor parishes and dioceses if necessity or pastoral considerations call for that in certain times or places. I just perfer the "high church" smells, bells, and elaborate vestments. I love the ebb and flow of liturgical seasons. I wouldn't want to discard the rich liturgical traditions that has been handed down to us and placed in our care. I think there is even a case for reviving a few that we've neglected.
I know this doesn't seem like a straight-forward match with my obvious very progressive or liberal leanings on theology and various questions about inclusion and social justice. It seems like often progressives get paired up with low-church stuff, and conservatives with high church stuff, especially in Roman Catholicism, but what can I say? I am what I am.
I certainly am not arguing with anyone who has different preferences. This is just how I feel about it. It took me a bit of thought and a lot of beer to come up with this rationalization.
All I had before that was "I like ornate vestments and lots of incense, because I like them", but in true human fashion, I now have a complex lengthy set of after the fact reasons to use to justify my gut instinct.
