A rchive Date
[ 18-07-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Vatican ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/goodden.html
Too-casual attire gets dressing down
Herman Goodden, London Free Press
2003-07-18
Vendors outside the Vatican are doing a burning business in disposable paper trousers and shirts for seriously steamed tourists who've been turning up at the basilica, the papal residence and the centre of operations for the Roman Curia, dressed in inappropriately casual clothing.
While Canada enjoys a moderate summer compared to recent years, Rome has been at the epicentre of a European heat wave that has been breaking records for the last three weeks.
At any other tourist site, temperatures of 30-plus C are an invitation for the gawking, picture-snapping hordes to slip into something a little more comfortable and skimpy.
But anyone turning up at the Vatican decked out in shorts and a tank-top or tube-top is repelled by neatly dressed guards (wearing long-sleeve pants and shirts and properly knotted neckties) who point to a big illustrated sign in St. Peter's Square, indicating that shoulders, legs and midriffs must be covered up.
One sweltering Texan claimed she'd been told that dress restrictions only applied if the Pope was on site. Other tourists, suspecting they might be challenged on this score, have instantly donned extra clothes they'd stashed away in their backpacks just in case.
Pulling on a pair of light summer slacks or a shirt that actually fits has got to beat rattling around the Vatican in a one-size-fits-all ensemble made out of cumbersome, clammy, black paper. The underdressed can squawk all they like about comfort and freedom of sartorial expression - such concepts fall on deaf ears at the Vatican.
Operated as an independent state, you could say the Vatican maintains its very own national dress code; a code that extends beyond its borders to include the hundreds of churches scattered throughout Rome. A particularly inane Danish tourist took the award for obtuseness, self-righteously muttering as he yanked on his paper pants, "I am born naked and the church wants me to be wearing pants."
We could have used one of those Vatican clothing monitors a couple of weeks ago at the 1 p.m. mass at St. Peter's Cathedral in London, when an intense-looking fellow, clad only in shorts and sandals, came striding in from the Sunfest in Victoria Park. Crossing right in front of the altar during opening prayers, he defiantly took his place in the very front pew, in effect daring anyone to utter a disapproving word.
Which we didn't, of course, though the people in his immediate vicinity instinctively started inching away from him, as if he were some kind of human bomb that might go off at any second. And those instincts were spot on. Aside from a couple of miscellaneous yelps, this guy didn't really blow until the mass was over and then he stood in the central aisle as people scuttered around him, bellowing something incoherent about sex.
The simple truth is that clothing - its abundance or paucity, its kempt appearance or shabbiness - sends a strong signal about its wearer's attitude. And a church that requires its faithful to uphold shared truths and values, will naturally enough expect a certain standard to be met in the matter of clothing, even in the hottest weather.
It isn't the heat that makes me wonder about Catholic protocol sometimes; it's the rain.
Earlier this summer, I'd just ducked into mass before a short, torrential thunderstorm moved over and I got to watch as a succession of soaked parishioners entered through the door of the east transept, shook themselves like terriers emerging from the river, and then, without missing a beat, dipped a finger into the holy water font and dabbed themselves four times while making the sign of the cross.
Simultaneously, it seemed one of the funniest and one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.
Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. His column appears in Monday's and Thursday's Opinion pages. It no longer appears in Sunday's A&E section. He can be e-mailed at herman.goodden@sympatico.ca.
Copyright © The London Free Press 2001,2002,2003]
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