(RNS) So are you by chance a hairy, manspreading slob? Or a woman who dresses way too young for her actual age? Or one of those “hyperactive gum-chewing kids with messy hair and dirty hands, checking their iPhones and annoying everyone within earshot or eyesight”?
Then you may want to reconsider your summertime churchgoing shtick.
Or at least check to see who is celebrating Mass if you are heading to a parish in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.
In an instantly quotable column published last week, Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island took on one of the clergy’s long-standing laments and launched an impressive broadside against “the sloppy and even offensive way people dress while attending Mass” in the summertime.
It’s a memorable rhetorical outburst, even for the outspoken Tobin, and it’s one that may alternately irk, or shame, Mass-goers — as well as finding more than a few pastors nodding in agreement.
“You know what I’m talking about; you’ve seen it too,” Tobin wrote.
Warming to his task, he then went on a tear:
“Hirsute flabmeisters spreading out in the pew, wearing wrinkled, very-short shorts and garish, unbuttoned shirts; mature women with skimpy clothes that reveal way too much, slogging up the aisle accompanied by the flap-flap-flap of their flip-flops; hyperactive gum-chewing kids with messy hair and dirty hands, checking their iPhones and annoying everyone within earshot or eyesight.
“C’mon — even in the summer, a church is a church, not a beach or a pool deck,” the bishop wrote.
Freely admitting to a bit of venting, Tobin went on to wonder about all the people he has seen “coming to Mass carrying their water bottles and coffee mugs? Do they really need to be hydrated or caffeinated during that hour they’re in church? Is it a sacred space or an airport terminal?”
The bishop’s verbal facepalm continued with a disquisition on what he said was the widespread ignorance of how to properly receive Communion, including a primer on doing so reverently.
Tobin does enjoy a reputation as a conservative hard-liner in the hierarchy — he has said he is “a little disappointed” in Pope Francis for not speaking out more against abortion — and his latest column was cheered by bloggers on the right, such as the Rev. John Zuhlsdorf.
Yet Tobin admitted that he doesn’t have strong views on the usual third-rail liturgical arguments, such as whether to receive Communion in the hand or on the tongue, or kneeling or standing.
But Tobin does want a good deal more decorum from the faithful when they come to Mass this summer.
Whether that will cause any of them to become a bit self-conscious and cover up, or whether they will simply ignore Tobin and continue on as always, it’s likely that more than a few priests are saying “amen” — albeit under their breath.
Religious control freaks don’t like it, but the bottom line always has been, and still is, the attitude of the heart. “Yahweh does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.” ~ 1 Samuel 16:7.
It’s important to remember (or perhaps learn for the first time), especially for Christians, and most especially for Catholic Christians, that because we are made body and soul by God, that both are equally as important in how we practice our faith. The height of this comes in the way we worship — because we’re physical beings, our actions matter.
Just as lip service or “the heart” of a person doesn’t equate to “putting your money where your mouth is” and acting, so too is it with Mass — When people come to Mass, we ought to show with our very actions that we understand where we are.
Honestly, I didn’t find the bishop’s column to be off the mark or unwarranted in the least, but I did find the analysis by Mr. Gibson (always a seeker of controversy) here to be more than a little biased and disguising of the truth. In particular, I noticed that he conveniently didn’t mention the quote Bishop Tobin included by none other than St. Francis of Assisi — the saint to whom so many Protestants seem to run to tell people to cool their jets, as if Francis was just some not-really-Catholic hippie who pulled one over on the Church:
“The title of this column was taken from a letter of St. Francis of Assisi to his friars, in which he reveals his profound respect for the Holy Eucharist. He writes: “Let the entire man be seized with fear; let the whole world tremble; let heaven exult when Christ, the Son of the Living God, is on the altar in the hands of the priest. O humble sublimity! O sublime humility! That the Lord of the universe, God and Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation he hides himself under a morsel of bread.””
I hope all who read this article will then read the bishop’s actual column, and then hopefully delve into just what Catholics believe the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to be, before commenting on it.
I’ve come to realize that God doesn’t care what I wear to church. Sunday best? Great. Sweatpants? No problem. The clothes I choose to put on my body don’t matter a bit. At my church, I’m accepted unconditionally.
In some sense, I do agree with you. Daily Mass when you have a tshirt and gym shorts? Yes, come in, definitely. To say you’re unwelcome in those or similar situations would be petty and dumb, I agree.
However, don’t you think there’s something to be said about wearing the “Sunday Best” as often as we can? It seems to me that if we CAN dress well to worship our Creator, we definitely OUGHT to do so whenever possible.