Repost: US Clerical Dress in 1916

Still relevant 100 years later...

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[87] The Sacred Congregation of Consistory, addressing the Canadian Clergy, vindicates the right of the Ordinary to enforce the provincial enactments regarding the wearing of the clerical habit. The decision provides that the custom of a locality (diocese) in the matter of clerical dress is to be maintained. But the Ordinary, with the consent of his Chapter or the Diocesan Board of Consultors [sic], may alter the custom in conformity with the requirements of times and conditions. Clerics out of their own diocese may conform to the locality in which they dwell. But the dress is to be always ecclesiastical. What is considered ecclesiastical is laid down by the Council of Quebec.

The decree serves as a reminder that for the clergy of the United States a distinctive dress has also been prescribed by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. A deviation from the law, sanctioning ordinary civilian's dress in black, has become the almost universal custom and has at least the silent toleration of the Bishops. What is to be deprecated, however, is the practice, occasionally adopted by clerics traveling outside their own diocese, of discarding all ecclesiastical indications in dress. Where that is a matter of convenience or necessity it is excusable. When it is intended as a disguise, it is abominable and as a rule a failure as well as a scandal.

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Source: "Clerical Dress," American Ecclesiastical Review 55 (July 1916): 87.