Warning: Vicars advised not to wear their dog collars in public because they are more likely to be attacked
Posted on 10/07/2007 11:28:49 AM PDT by Stoat
Warning: Vicars advised not to wear their dog collars in public because they are more likely to be attacked
Vicars are being advised to take off their dog collars when they go out while off duty to reduce the risk of being attacked by yobs.
New advice states that even the Archbishop of Canterbury should remove his dog collar outside church.
Priests should also seek the company of "guardian angels" to reduce the risk of being assaulted and protect vicarages by installing a number of security devices.
A new report by National Churchwatch, an independent organisation which provides clergy with personal safety advice, warns priests are often targeted more than other professions as they are considered unlikely to fight back.
Falling congregations and an education system which focuses on understanding all faiths has made the Church of England priest more at risk.
The report states: "A knock on effect of this is that attacking a member of the clergy is seen by most criminals as no different to attacking a shopkeeper, robbing an old lady or any other member of society, if their own motivation demands this action."
Five vicars have been murdered in the past decade, and a 2001 study found that 12 per cent of clergy had suffered some form of violence.
Around half of all assaults on clergy occur away from the vicarage and the report highlighted the importance of the "clerical collar" in making them more vulnerable.
"The fact that clergy are clearly identifiable away from their place of work/home raises the risk of them meeting a motivated offender who uses violence as a method of achieving their aims," the report states.
Author Nick Tolson said the warning about not wearing dog collars at all time was relevant to all clergy, including the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He said: "When they are on their own, and when they are off duty, for example when they are also doing their shopping in Tesco on their own, there is no need for them to wear their dog collars."
Mr Tolson said: "For some clergy this is real radical stuff. The argument against it is it's their witness in the community - their way of saying, 'hello, I'm the vicar.'
"That's fine when you're being the vicar. If you're visiting someone or going to an old people's home, wear your dog collar. That means you're with people. It's when you're on your own, that's the key thing.
"There are times when you can be in church on your own and you look out and see some guy who's obviously off his trolley. You may want to slip off the dog collar before you see him."
The report also recommends clergy make "lifestyle changes" to reduce the times when they are alone. The mere presence in the church or at home of a family member, parishioner or churchworker "reduces the chance of violence to a very low statistical probability."
Vicars should not invite people they don't know to their homes and they are advised to implement basic security measures.
These include installation of front door "spy hole" or CCTV to see who is at the door, a door design that stops the person outside from seeing in, an intercom to communicate with a visitor and there should be no letter boxes on entry doors.
The report concludes that clergy should follow the basic personal safety rules to protect themselves and to set an example to other members of the community.
The most recent murder of a vicar happened in March this year.
Father Paul Bennett, 59, was stabbed in the grounds of his church in Trecynon, near Aberdare, South Wales. Geraint Evans, 24, a local resident, is due to stand trial for his murder.
You’re quite right, of course, to say that usage and longevity don’t automatically confer respectability: but you are quite mistaken about the connotations of this term in Britain, which have never been at all pejorative. The colloquialism became current at the same time as the collar itself was replacing the previously traditional long white clerical bands as the normal ‘uniform’ for Church of England clergymen: and remember that this was the time, in the latter half of the 19th century, when the CoE was at the apogee of its power and repect. Ever since then it has been the universally used term by those in and of the Church, as well as those outside it. Its connotations throughout my own (longish) lifetime here in England, and well before, have been of affectionate, familiar respect, not in the least derogatory. There’s a distinction between colloquialism and slang; and this term belongs firmly in the former category.
What an insulting headline
I would love to see headline
“Journalists and liberals muzzled in public.”
Probably happen when pigs fly
headline also insulting considering another story posted here yesterday about fireman being disciplined for observing gay sex in park. Cannot remember title of story, but derogatory term for what the perps were doing in park was “dogger or dogging”
Not derogatory -- but not something I'd say myself (at least not where a clergyman I didn't know well might hear me!)
If the OED is to be believed, it was actually a bishop who first used the expression with this sense!
We are "PC-ing" ourseleves to death these days.
I can see where the name came from because of the physical resemblance and the contrast with the Roman collar. I'm sure no serious disrespect was intended!
After all, think of the Dominicans (Domini canes)!
What I want to know is, where did St. Dominic find a yellow Lab? (they'll carry anything in their mouths - including flaming torches).
That image reminds me that to judge from some of their memoirs, Victorian country parsons often devoted as much pastoral care to their canine as their human parishioners. That being the case, it would not have occurred to them that there was anything untoward in the application of a canine metaphor to their professional garb!
(dear Mr. Trollope!)
As for “utterly pejorative words”, time was many of those same words could be said in polite society and noone would bat an eyelash. Calling an African American “black” at one time was “progressive. An “coloured person” is verboten. Now a “person of colour” is en vogue
But if the Anglicans don’t mind who am I to say otherwise?
You're dead wrong on that. I don't know how old you are, but I'm on the shady side of 50, and my maternal grandmother (born 1895) would NEVER have used such words, and they were NOT acceptable in polite society, EVER.
She was a D.A.R., white-glove-and-pearls, Southern Lady. No well-bred person would have used such language in her generation, my mother's generation, or mine. It just was not done.
Why does the British press insist on calling them “yobs”?
Why not call them filthy Muslim criminals?
Even in the days of Saml. Clemens, it was Huck, Pap, and the river crowd that used the "N-word", not Aunt Polly, Judge Thatcher, or any of the well to do townsfolk. Even in those days it was considered low, Clemens used it in Huckleberry Finn to make a point -- it was the only way human debris like Pap could find to hold themselves above SOMEbody.
"Negro" is actually the correct anthropological term and was not considered derogatory until the "Black Power" movement of the sixties. My grandmother not only used that term, she also used "Negress". Now THAT would get Al Sharpton's BVDs in a bunch. Some older ladies of color in my youth preferred the term "colored" and of course their preference was honored.
Nobody said "darky" outside of a minstrel show, certainly not a lady.
My father has been an Episcopal minister here in the U.S. for over 50 years -- and I've always known the term "dog collar" for them. I consider it a familiar, not disrespectful, term.
Of course it's not a "proper" term, but it's so long been an "in" usage, people who make a fuss about it are clearly not Anglicans. (I can't speak for RCs.)
It's sort of like the U.S. term "Whisk(e)ypalians" -- an internal jest that might look offensive, pejorative and derogatory to an outsider.
(But use it in those contexts and you may have a battle on your hands.)
Thank you! The same is true this side of the pond.
As I understand "yob", they're far from being all Muslims, immigrants, or whatever. A vast number of them are home-grown (genetic, if you will) Anglos.
Q: "Do Episcopalians believe in smoking and drinking?"
A: "Yes, but they're not necessary for salvation."
"Episcopagan" may be more accurate these days . . .
LOL!
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