priests
Clothes shape the man
Elizabeth Sisson
Father Jason Welle, O.F.M. waits for a train in his Franciscan habit
A reporter has some tough questions for a Franciscan friar: Where do you get those robes? And can you exercise in them?
by
Cliff Doerksen
W
aiting for the train the other day I crossed paths with a vigorous-looking young man clad in sandals, a brown, hooded, ankle-length robe, and a Cliff Doerksen died shortly before this article appeared in the December 2010 edition of the Chicago Reader. The article is reprinted with permission. Doerksen held a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University, wrote extensively for the Chicago Reader and TimeOut Magazine, and published the historical blog Bad News from the Past. He taught at Princeton University, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and Northwestern University.
72
simple belt fashioned of rope. “You’d be a monk,” I said to him, flaunting my enormous erudition. Close, but no ciborium: He was rather a friar, of the Franciscan order specifically. “Monk implies stability of place,” the man explained. “They answer to one particular monastery. Friar implies itinerancy, though I do answer to ‘monk’ because it’s a term most people know.” My fellow commuter, it transpired, was 32-year-old Father Jason Welle, O.F.M., who in March 2010 was appointed associate pastor of the parish of Saint Mary of Celle in Berwyn, Illinois. Always on the lookout for potentially
VISION 2012
For more features go to VocationNetwork.org
