That is a biretta!
And I wanted you to see the item that will be the center of attention for this writing so that you do not in any way get confused. After all, I do believe that there is a quite different item which is also could easily sound almost like the item of which I am writing.
That other item is a beretta.
And that is a gun.
This is about the hat not the gun.
The funny looking hat called biretta.
It's a clerical garment, rarely seen anymore, although I suspect there are some of you who may still be seeing clerics proudly wearing these things as if to announce that they are really from a previous century.
There was a time when all Roman Catholic clerics wore bettas.
And I grew up in that time.And in my junior and senior years of college, all students of philosophy, as normal, daily attire topped our heads with birettas.
Or at least that is what some in authority thought.
John Dearden, then Archbishop of Detroit (AKA Iron John, remember) was one of those who assumed that we dressed properly with those birettas on our heads.
And in my senior year of college at St. Mary's, Orchard Lake, this newly-arrived bishop of Detroit was about to make his visit to our campus.
And part of that visit would include a uniform inspection!
Which meant, get those birettas out from wherever they may be in your closets!
For some it even meant get to that religious goods shop and buy yourself a biretta.
Everyone of us would be properly uniformed and that definitely meant a scramble for birettas.
Iron John would tolerate nothing less than full dress uniform!
And this event also occasioned a very important lesson in anatomy as well.
Until then I never knew (and bet you did not know until reading this) that God gave us those seemingly useless little fingers solely for the purpose of properly balancing birettas!
That little finger on your left hand, the one you thought was merely decorative, well, it is the biretta finger!
We were, in anticipation of Iron John's visit, schooled, trained, rehearsed in how to courteously welcome and greet our new Archbishop while balancing our biretta firmly on the little finger of the left hand.
Biretta on head (as a hat should be) and then methodically moved with right hand from head downward and into left hand and securely attached to that left pinky, held firmly in place while the right hand clasped the Archbishops hand and the head bowed to kiss his episcopal ring.
Soldier!
You have nothing on those ancient seminary routines!
And for Iron John, we were sure to know well the routine.
And he judged us to be good, model seminarians, promising future priests.
After all, we had birettas,
We wore birettas.
We knew how to handle those clerical tools.
And we knew why God gave us a little finger on our left hand.
Our birettas witnessed to the very quality of our clerical potential.
We had birettas.
At least until Iron John went home!
Watch for more in the weeks to come.
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