Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The History of Why Catholics Call Priest "Father"

Canterbury Tales has a very interesting post up called Historical Development of Calling Priests "Father". Pretty good and full of interesting tidbits. Including this:
Catholic priests in England were not allowed to wear the cassock publicly in England (this right being reserved to Anglican clergy) and this oddity gave rise to the Anglo-American custom of the Catholic priest wearing the black suit instead of the black cassock in the street. Ironically, wearing of the cassock in public in England was a symbol of Protestantism!

No comments: