Encircling the Gothic church where Inquisition trials were held in Rome four centuries ago is the Catholic clergy’s very own garment district.
Here popes get their button-down cassocks, cardinals their crimson birettas and nuns their gray habits. Items, costing a few dozen to a few thousand euros, hang in windows decked with chalices and candlesticks. But Christmas sales aren’t what they used to be.
The ranks of the priesthood are diminishing. The number of American priests has fallen 20% since 1965 to 45,000, according to the index of leading Catholic indicators by Kenneth C. Jones. Vestment sales to U.S. clergy have declined as church contributions dropped and the dollar tumbled to a record low versus the euro, reducing revenue from overseas sales.
“This is not a booming market,” said Mathias Slabbinck, chief executive of a century-old Belgian company whose vestments are sold in shops in Rome and around the world. “I wouldn’t recommend anybody get into it. Church attendance might be up one day, but we cannot simply hope that will happen. We have to have a plan.”
Slabbinck, 36, said his company, which bears his family name, received orders from parishes such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Charlotte, N.C.
Yet U.S. churches now draw lower contributions from parishioners, he said, after lawsuits by victims of sexual abuse resulted in costly legal settlements. The archdiocese of Boston is paying $84 million to settle 552 sexual-abuse lawsuits.
Some vestment makers are fighting the slump by branching out into home furnishings and uniforms.
Here popes get their button-down cassocks, cardinals their crimson birettas and nuns their gray habits. Items, costing a few dozen to a few thousand euros, hang in windows decked with chalices and candlesticks. But Christmas sales aren’t what they used to be.
The ranks of the priesthood are diminishing. The number of American priests has fallen 20% since 1965 to 45,000, according to the index of leading Catholic indicators by Kenneth C. Jones. Vestment sales to U.S. clergy have declined as church contributions dropped and the dollar tumbled to a record low versus the euro, reducing revenue from overseas sales.
“This is not a booming market,” said Mathias Slabbinck, chief executive of a century-old Belgian company whose vestments are sold in shops in Rome and around the world. “I wouldn’t recommend anybody get into it. Church attendance might be up one day, but we cannot simply hope that will happen. We have to have a plan.”
Slabbinck, 36, said his company, which bears his family name, received orders from parishes such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Charlotte, N.C.
Yet U.S. churches now draw lower contributions from parishioners, he said, after lawsuits by victims of sexual abuse resulted in costly legal settlements. The archdiocese of Boston is paying $84 million to settle 552 sexual-abuse lawsuits.
Some vestment makers are fighting the slump by branching out into home furnishings and uniforms.
