Habits of Penance: Religious Clothing at the Peripheries

Abstract

Abstract: Recent magisterial statements about religious life call the habit a sign of consecration. But given contemporary ecclesial scandals, the habit’s sign-value is no simple thing. In this context, the classical appreciation of the habit as penitential is worth recalling. This article draws insights about the penitential quality of the habit from the thirteenth-century mendicant controversies and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Accused of hypocrisy because of the clothes they wore, the mendicants needed to respond. Thomas led a theological response by generously engaging his opponents before reframing the debate about the habit in terms of penance. His approach offers wise guidance today as religious consider the witness of the habit in light of Pope Francis’s call to go to the peripheries.