Monsignors, and what's "supposed" to be....

So, the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago has submitted to the proper authorities the names of some priests on whom he feels the honorific "Monsignor" might well be bestowed and an "independent information source" for news on things Catholic seems to be working up a snit about it.
I grew up in an Archdiocese which seemed never to have drifted away from the practice, so it strikes me as neither pre-conciliar, nor empty nor something to which "priests of an older generation", (or those of a younger, for that matter,,) would either object, or, to quote every secular media outlet's favorite sound byte provider for Catholic stories, "have little or no respect."

The story quotes one Chicago priest as being agin' it, (and claiming that most of the rest of the Chicago presbyteral council agree with him,) and one Chicago priest as fer it.

(I could see out of polite humility demurring about the honor for oneself, but objecting to it for someone else seems churlish.)

I wonder a bit why a Chicago-based Catholic medium would bother to go to Fr McBrien for a quote, but I imagine, (I "suppose"?) that they did so because they could rely on on which side of any question he would come down.
But more, I wonder about the word "suppose."
Yes, it can literally mean something along the lines of "think or believe or guess without any actual basis in fact or evidence."

But idiomatically, I think most people use the phrase, "it is supposed," to mean, "it ought" or "it should", or "the rules say."

How do you think Fr McBrien meant this:

Monsignors "were supposed to be out of fashion after Vatican II,"

?
The phrase "out of fashion" is funny.
And who do you think he meant by "priests of an older generation"?
Those who were in ministry before the "fashion" changed? those his own age?
Is that just one more reference to the generational divide between priests we keep hearing about?
"Those young whipper-snappers won't listen to us when we tell them people don't have to listen to authority!!!!!"
("Ah, Benson. You are so blissfully free of the ravages of logic!")
(Yeah, I know it's "intelligence.")

Anyway, I know a number of priests who are more than deserving of such an honor.

And those minor distinctions in choir dress, ain't exactly, to my way of thinking, "colorful priestly garb" that can be worn by those who bear the title of Monsignor.