Unusual Habits Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pope John Paul II

John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtya) was pope from October 1978 until his death in April 2005, and thus was pope in 1996. Despite this, orders of nuns were in practice allowed to follow their own customs. However, the fastest growing orders in the early 21st century are the ones with traditional habits. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI after him have maintained that the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the work of Pope John XXIII (1958-63) and his successor Pope Paul VI (1963-78), had been misinterpreted and taken too far. Pope Benedict XVI commissioned a formal investigation of the "feminist agenda" among American religious women, followed by a reprimand in 2012 that focused more on conflicts over abortion, homosexuality, and ordination of women than on clothing.

Answer: Slaves, prostitutes, and concubines

Veils are the first articles of clothing known to be the subject of laws. Wives, daughters, and widows from respectable families in Assyria were punished if discovered in public without covering their heads. Slaves, prostitutes, and concubines could be punished for wearing veils. (Concubines could wear veils if accompanied by a legitimate wife.) Men were required to report women who transgressed these rules of dress.

This distinction between "good" and "bad" women continued in later cultures in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and women of the early church conformed to societal norms for respectable women.

Answer: Chastity, poverty, and obedience

Also called the "evangelical counsels" the vows of chastity, poverty (or perfect charity), and obedience are a radical departure from the secular pursuit of sex, material possessions, and one's own rights at the expense of the welfare of others. According to "The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns" by Elizabeth Kuhns, "The Benedictine profession ceremony placed a silver ring on the nun's finger after which she replied, 'I am espoused to Him Whom angels serve; Whose beauty sun and moon behold with wonder.'" Portions of this ceremony are still used by some orders.

Monks made the same vows but without the female accoutrements and did not become "Brides of Christ".

Answer: Black Friars

In England, Dominicans were called Black Friars, based on the color of their cloaks, and the history of Blackfriars Hall at Oxford University, established as a Dominican monastery in 1221, reflects both a long presence in England and a close connection of the order with education.

The motto of the Dominicans expressed their purpose: "to praise, to bless, and to preach" (the Dominican "Missal") and members of the order may add the letters O.P. after their names, standing for the Latin Ordo Praedicatorum, the Order of Preachers.

Answer: Richard III

Several early sources indicate that Richard was buried in Leicester by the Greyfriars. The Franciscan monastery no longer stands, but Members of Parliament and local government officials immediately began calling for a skeleton found by archaeologists digging under a parking lot to be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral if confirmed to be the bones of Richard III.

The skeleton had spinal abnormalities, consistent with the record that Richard III had scoliosis, and the skull had been split into, also conforming to stories of Richard's death on the battlefield.

In 2013, these bones were confirmed by DNA testing to be those of Richard III.

Answer: sumptuary laws

The word "sumptuary" comes from the word for "expenditure" in Latin. The Roman laws insured that a person's social class could be identified on sight. However, only Roman citizens, regardless of wealth, were allowed to wear the toga, and only the Emperor could wear a purple toga.

As in earlier civilizations, like the Greeks and Assyrians, distinctions were made between respectable matrons and prostitutes. In Elizabethan England, sumptuary laws prohibited women who were not of the nobility to wear silk and other fine materials, and the size of a person's ruff and even a man's sword were prescibed by law.

In medieval England, as early as Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" in the late 1300s, it was obvious from the dress of women like the Wife of Bath (who wore an illegally large hat) and the Prioress (who lived luxuriously for a nun) that such laws were often difficult to enforce.

Answer: It was a work apron used for manual labor.

Wearing the scapular began with the very practical purpose of protecting the habit while working, but it later came to symbolize the willingness to do any sort of work a religious person was called to do, including praying. Some Catholic lay persons wear smaller scapulars underneath their clothing for a similar symbolic purpose.

Other parts of the habit have practical origins, as well. For example, the guimpe, a large round collar that fits over the front of the habit of some orders, was adapted from an undergarment or triangular cloth that fits underneath a low-cut neckline for modesty.

Answer: a hair shirt, also known as a cilice

Similar to the "sackcloth" mentioned in the Bible as being worn at times of mourning or repentance and the rough clothing worn by John the Baptist, the hair shirt (called a "cilice" perhaps because it was first woven in Cilicia) came to be used under the clothing by both religious and lay persons as a physical reminder of the need for repentance, resistance to temptations, and obedience to God.

Other types of painful devices came to be called cilices. Penitents wore such garments as a vow to God, and often they were found only at the time of the person's death.

Some orders of monks and nuns have traditionally worn the cilice or hair shirt as part of their habits.

Answer: Death row in the Louisiana State Prison and venues where she spoke against capital punishment

In photographs of Sister Helen Prejean, she is typically seen with short hair, glasses, white collared blouse, and a tailored suit. She began her ministry on death row in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the early 1980s and began speaking out and writing books about the inequities of the death penalty in the United States as a result of counseling a prisoner during the months leading up to his execution.

She has remained a strong advocate for death row inmates and against capital punishment into the 21st century.

Answer: A dog that loyally remained near his master's grave for fourteen years

Although historians have argued that Greyfriars Bobby was a publicity stunt and that more than one Skye terrier dog had been trained to remain in the churchyard of Greyfriars, the legend of a loyal little dog who remained at his master's grave for fourteen years has been the subject of books and movies, and the general outline of this story of a policeman and his dog seems historical.

The story is particularly appropriate for Greyfriars when one considers Saint Francis's concern for all creatures.

A picture of Greyfriars Bobby is the logo for Fun Trivia team Faithful and True.