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My favorite Catholic t-shirt that I have seen recently was a picture of St. Anthony of Padua with text below that says “Have you checked under the couch?”

granted, you still saw this TSHIRT at MASS…I dislike Tshirts even in casual situations, but it absolutely infuriates me to see people wearing them at Mass. Last week I was teaching CCD and I saw a student from another class wearing a t-shirt that said “porn star.” dispicable

Cody,
I’m not a fan of wearing T-shirts to Sunday mass, but it’s normal at my church for college kids going to daily mass to wear t-shirts. At my church people usually aren’t dressed up for daily mass unless they are coming straight from the office. Curt Jester’s post was from October 26- a Friday- so it was a daily mass. Perhaps there are different subcultures in different churches, but wearing an appropriate t-shirt to daily mass is considered acceptable at most churches I’ve been to.

And on Sunday, yes there are some people wearing grubby clothing, or dressed immodestly, or sporting inappropriate messages/images on their t-shirts, etc.- these are usually high schoolers who look like they don’t want to be there. But rather than getting “infuriated” that they aren’t dress nicely, I’m thankful that they are there to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. If we give them mean looks because we think they are dressed inappropriately, we’ll only succeed in driving them away from church. I think a better approach is to love them, and if you know the person or feel comfortable talking to them, point out their inappropriate dress with a gentle question, like “hey, do you realize that your “porn star” shirt is really not very appropriate for mass?” They probably never thought about it before. So let’s not condemn them.

And back to the Catholic T-shirt thread, My favorite is a shirt whose front says “Urgent Message: call home” and on the back, next to a picture of a rosary, it says “Your mom hasn’t heard from you in ages”.

I’m generally an advocate of formal attire at mass. (I like to ask “Would you meet the President wearing that?”) However I would say say that there is a general exception given when the shirt is associated with some church group or promotes the faith as with the one mentioned. Then again, this is California, where standards of dress are a tad more casual, even for business.

What?!? T-shirts at Mass? No no no no no no. Did I say No? Sorry. NOOOOOOOO. Not good enough for a job interview, court appearance, wedding reception…..no way at Holy Mass. Absolutely unacceptable. The t-shirt wearer either has NO CLUE about Who resides in the Tabernacle and what is taking place at the Holy Altar, or worse…doesn’t care. Shame on them and anybody who defends this sloppy and lazy “Sunday best”.

I have a different suggestion: maybe these teenagers wear these t-shirts to invite conversation on sensitive topics about which they (not necessarily conscioulsy) want to know more.
Why not accept the invitation and start that conversation? Getting upset, angry and holier than thou will achieve little when dealing with a walking bag of hormones.
Let’s not forget what Jesus said when some young people were acting, in the view of the apostles, inappropriately enough to deserve being chased away.