EPISTLES

This interview between Matt Fradd and Peter Kwasniewski explores the deep symbolism, history, and theological meaning behind traditional clerical attire and liturgical vestments in the Roman Catholic Church.

Their discussion begins with something as simple as the cassock but quickly reveals how clothing reflects identity, mission, and even the underlying doctrinal mindset of the Church across the centuries.

As the conversation unfolds, the two move from clerical dress to the evolution of the chasuble, the effects of liturgical reform, and the curious uniformity with which radical changes swept across the globe after the Second Vatican Council.

Dr. Kwasniewski explains not only what changed, but how and why — touching on the role of liturgists, the disappearance of traditional symbols, and the widespread rejection of practices long associated with the Tridentine heritage.

Main Reasons on Decline of Priestly Vestments

Peter Kwasniewski explains that priests no longer wear the cassock mainly due to the deliberate post–Vatican II shift away from traditional Tridentine symbols. He notes the dense, well-connected network of liturgists who promoted secularized clerical dress, encouraged priests to wear suits, and influenced bishops who deferred to their expertise.

The cassock, which visibly marks a priest as sacramentally set apart and fits coherently with liturgical vestments, was rejected alongside other old Church customs.

Why Priests Once Dressed Differently

Matt Fradd: I don’t know why (but) if you had the option to wear a cassock, why wouldn’t you? It’s so serious-looking and elegant.

Peter Kwasniewski: The cassock, or soutane, is the clerical garb in the Roman Church. The clergymen, the suit looks ridiculous. It looks like a Protestant minister — that was its origin. It started as a way for Roman Catholic priests to fit in with their Anglican and Presbyterian peers, not to stand out or look different.

I think in the United States there might have been… I don’t know, I forget if it was just bishops telling priests not to dress in the cassock or what the exact circumstances were, but the clerical suit is certainly a secularization of clerical dress.

Granted, it’s better than clergy going around in jeans and t-shirts, or like the suit and ties the Jesuits at Georgetown wore when I was there, but it’s not like the cassock.

The cassock looks like religious garb. It looks like a monastic habit. It sets this man apart, as he is indeed sacramentally and ontologically set apart by his ordination. It definitely shows that he has stepped out of the secular mainstream. He’s not dressed like a workman or businessman or like anybody else, but for a particular function within the Church.

Vestments and the Logic of Worship

And of course, it works better. When you think about it, when the priest says Mass, what does he put on? He puts on an alb — a robe — and then an amice, a stole, a chasuble, a maniple. He’s putting on layers fundamentally based on an ancient tunic or flowing garment.

Why Cassocks Fit the Liturgy — Literally

The cassock suits that as the undergarment. But think about how absurd it is — and I’ve seen this — when a priest has slacks on and then he puts the vestments over them, and you can see the slacks underneath. It just doesn’t fit. The cassock is just of a piece with the rest of the clerical vestments.

Matt Fradd: I’d never thought of that. The cassock we have post–Vatican II — was that around prior? And if not, why did we change it? Because the fiddleback is clearly more elegant.

Peter Kwasniewski: Oh, you’re talking about the chasubles.

Matt Fradd: What did I say?

Peter Kwasniewski: I think you said cassocks.

Matt Fradd: Oh, I did. I meant—

Peter Kwasniewski: Yeah.

Matt Fradd: This is what I’m confused about. It feels like there was a worldwide orchestrated directive to make everything fall in lockstep. I don’t know how to understand these changes.

The Evolution of the Chasuble

Peter Kwasniewski: No, it’s actually astonishing. The historian Henry Sire, in his book Phoenix from the Ashes, which I highly recommend — an excellent book, though I don’t agree with him about everything — but it’s still a superb book.

Henry Sire says the historian wishes he had a more believable tale to tell when he writes about the modern Church. Because when you write about what happened, anybody who didn’t know it actually happened would say, “That’s baloney. That could never have happened.” But it did happen.

But in terms of the chasuble: the Gothic chasuble — the more flowing and fuller cut — is a perfectly honorable and respectable vestment. It was worn for many centuries.

Renaissance Fiddleback vs. Medieval Gothic

Peter Kwasniewski: Historic or newly made Gothic chasubles are dignified and worthy. They don’t look like polyester drapes. The vestments St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Bonaventure would have seen were Gothic: bell-shaped, flowing more fully toward the ankles.

The Roman fiddleback vestment was the result of a sartorial evolution that took place mainly in the Renaissance. And when you look at the history of vestments, either in East or West, there’s been a tendency toward simplification — toward making them less heavy.

The older vestments tend to use a lot more fabric, and so it’s heavier for the priest to lift up his arms. During the Mass he has to lift up his arms at various times — to elevate the Host, to move things around, or whatever it might be — and so this heavy fabric and the full cut would, over the centuries, be trimmed a little more and more and more until you get to the point where all that’s left is just the centerpiece.

Almost like what some people, a little disrespectfully, call a poster board — you know, when people wear something in the front and back like a poster.

Matt Fradd: Oh yeah.

Peter Kwasniewski: Really all that’s left in the Roman fiddleback chasuble is just the front and back without the parts that connected it and flowed further. And so it’s cooler to wear. It’s easier to move around in.

The Post-Conciliar Shift

Why Traditional Vestments Vanished Overnight

Matt Fradd: Well, put it this way, maybe another way of putting it — why don’t you see that today?

Peter Kwasniewski: Yes. I think that’s easy to say. That form of vestment, which had dominated almost everywhere for several centuries prior to the Second Vatican Council, was one of those symbols that became fixed in people’s minds as a symbol of the Tridentine Rite — the old 1950s Church that we’re trying to get away from as fast as we can. Light speed. Warp speed.

And so anything to do with that old Church — whether it’s the Roman fiddleback vestment, the biretta, the cassock, lots of use of holy water, lots of statues of saints, women wearing veils — anything associated with the post-Tridentine or Counter-Reformation Church, all of that had to be rejected.

So women should stop wearing veils. Priests should wear suits or lay clothes. And at Mass they should wear so-called Gothic chasubles. Unfortunately, what that often meant was, as I said before, a big polyester dress with some kind of ugly cross on it that looks like it was made by six-year-olds or something.

How the Revolution Spread

Peter Kwasniewski: And this was very deliberate. What we have to understand is: how did changes like this spread so rapidly? How did Communion in the hand while standing spread so rapidly when it was never mandated?

The Vatican never said, “All of you must stand and receive in the hand.” What the Vatican said was: the norm is receiving Communion on the tongue, but permission can be given to receive in the hand. There was permission, but never a mandate. And yet within half a decade, everybody seemed to be doing it.

Similarly with the vestments.

Another example would be Mass versus populum. Vatican II never mentioned turning the priest around to face the people. There’s no subsequent liturgical document that mandates that. In fact, all you can find are indications in different places that say the altar should be built freestanding so that it can be incensed from all sides and so that Mass can be celebrated facing the people. “Can be” — but this just a sort of creation of the space.

But once more, within just a few years, there was practically not a single Catholic church on the planet where the priest was not facing the people. How did this all happen? Was it a conspiracy?

Well… kind of.

The Role of Modern Liturgists

Peter Kwasniewski: In a very simple way, the liturgists — who were lockstep behind these changes because of their false antiquarianism, their pastorian rationalism, their emulation of the Protestants, and for various reasons — were in total sync with one another.

These liturgists met annually for liturgy conferences that were very well attended. In the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, there were massive liturgy conferences where every liturgist from all over the world would show up and talk to each other about how “we need to go back to this,” “we need to imitate that,” “we need to get rid of this,” “ecumenical that,” and so on. They were constantly comparing notes.

So there was this dense, well-connected network of liturgists. And naturally — though unfortunately and unnecessarily — the bishops in most dioceses were not trained liturgists.

The Lack of Oversight by Bishops

Peter Kwasniewski: They thought: We’re not the experts. These guys are the experts. Every year they go to these conferences. They are the avant-garde. They’ve read the latest and greatest.

So they let them shape diocesan policies. And that’s why it seemed like, in just a matter of years, everybody was doing the same thing. That’s exactly why it happened.

Matt Fradd: Wow. So a lack of oversight?

Peter Kwasniewski: A definite lack of oversight — and the well-connected network of liturgists.