WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

By Tim Rohr

In APPARENTLY IT'S OKAY WITH JIMENEZ...UNLESS WE HEAR OTHERWISE, Anonymous asks (and accuses):

So we know he is not a priest of deacon, and at best is altarboy. What exactly about his outfit would be against what is allowed? Or are we just going to throw the Chancellor and Archbishop so casually into accusing them of accepting abuses?

Anonymous is referring to this picture of a recent liturgical event at Bishop Baumgartner Memorial School:

The priest is Msgr. Ruben Espino who is also the Chancellor for the Archdiocese of Agana. The person next to him is the person at issue who we will identify as the "assistant," since, due to his dress, we don't know what to call him.

In the aforesaid post, I answered Anonymous. In this post, I will copy the answer with illustrations and a few extra notes.

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Clerical dress, especially relative to the celebration of the Sacraments, requires specific and identifiable dress. In fact, everything relative to the celebration of the Sacraments requires specifics, from the actual words, to the rubrics, to the vestments, the vessels, the cloths, etc. 

The main reason is due to the dignity of the Sacrament itself, but it is also so that the sacred roles of the liturgical actors are clearly denoted. Functionally, vestments are uniforms. In the military, what would happen to a private who dressed like a general? 

Altar servers are to vest clearly as altar servers, in most cases with a cassock over which a surplice is worn. An alb may also be worn.

Altar server wearing a cassock and a surplice. 

Altar servers wearing an alb.

Relative to the matter at hand, Msgr. Espino’s “assistant” is not only not wearing appropriate altar-server vestments, but is apparently wearing a costume of his own making and in fact is wearing what appears to be a “rochet,” a white-laced vestment under another vestment, resembling a chimere. 

A white rochet with lace elements, to be worn over a cassock and under a chimere.

This sort of dress is not only NOT appropriate for an altar-server, it is a type of vestiture normally reserved for bishops. 

There is also the issue of the assistant wearing a white collar protruding over the dark thing he’s wearing over his shoulders, which imitates a certain type of Roman collar as usually worn by members of the Redemptorists. 

This "assistant" is known for his abuses, but he's not the real problem. The real problem is the clergy who let this priest-actor do whatever he wants. In this case, the blame lies on Msgr. Espino, the Chancellor. 

However, if this sort of thing is going on with the approval of the Archbishop, then not only do I stand corrected, I will publish a public apology and will never bring it up again. If this is the case, said approval may be emailed to me at timrohr.guam@gmail.com and I'll post the approval letter on this blog for all to see. 

In case some are wondering "what's the big deal," some of us are just tired of the abuses in our church, everything from the 50 years of sexually molesting minors, to improvising the liturgy, to imitation clerics - like the one at issue.