# The stole

**Stola**

**Known today as.** The long band of cloth worn by the priest about the neck, the sign of his sacred office.

Kind: Sacramental

## What was it used for?

In the rite of exorcism the priest wears a violet stole and lays its end on the neck of the possessed.

## What does modern science say?

Worn at every sacrament.

## What lore surrounds it?

The stole was believed to carry the authority of the Church itself: demons, the manuals say, are tormented by its touch.

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that at the ordination of priests the bishop lays the stole crosswise saying, “Receive the yoke of the Lord, for His yoke is sweet and His burden is light,” and that in the ninth and tenth centuries in the Frankish Empire “the priests were commanded to wear the stole constantly as a badge of their calling, especially when on a journey.” It was once customary “to ornament the ends with fringe, tassels, or little bells,” and the old theories of its origin, from a garment's trimming or “the Jewish praying mantle,” have “been given up”; it was the Roman orarium, laid before ordination “upon the Confessio of St. Peter.”

## Sources

- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Stole.” newadvent.org/cathen/14301a.htm

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*The stole.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/stole

Historical description, not medical advice.