The hat and the bachelor

I was there when a Canadian colleague (bottom picture)
Hank first saw the “split knuckle” (as he calls the split-sleeve gown) robe — at an ordination in Massachusetts. (Wasn’t PeaceBang there, too?) We both thought it very natty.

If you’ve never met me in the flesh, you’ve got to accept that this thing is rather inbred.

I saw one in London worn by a lay minister at the Unitarian church Hubby and I visited on our anniversary. Turns out it is a Bachelor’s gown.

(And now I want the John Knox cap. Bottom of the page.)

Now, as for the hat that Hank and Adam want — “you know those round flat hats that preachers always wear in cowboy movies and as soon as you see someone wearing it you know — ‘that’s the parson'” — well, I want one too. In what world I would wear such a thing I’m sure I don’t know, but if y’all get one, who am I not to get one?

Well, I’m still looking, but we’re talking about what “Father September” is wearing in the 2005 Calendario Romano, right?

Published
Categorized as Vestments

By Scott Wells

Scott Wells, 46, is a Universalist Christian minister doing Universalist theology and church administration hacks in Washington, D.C.

5 comments

  1. I want one too now.

    And a mennonite great coat–cuz they’re cool.

    And black cowboy boots. Justin ropers, specifically, not those high-heeled jobbies that could put drag queens to shame.

    Yeah, I wanna be a pioneer preacher, just like Sherlock Bristol.

  2. Uh, Per’, you are being serious? Or not?

    By the way, I used to own a pair of black Justin ropers, and did occasionally preach and do graveside services in them. (Under a big black gown, they look like a pair of oxfords.)

    If you want to be a pioneer preacher, however, there are Universalists like George Rogers, Erasmus Munford, and the overmuch Quillen Shinn to emulate.

  3. What’s up with that calendar of priests? Isn’t there something kind of…I don’t know…wrong…about that even existing?

    You could have at least warned me about the content of the Calenderio Romano (specifically the hotness of the particular clergy chosen). Or is this something that everyone is in on but me?

    Now the combination of hot and priest is seared onto my brain for the rest of the day. I feel kind of creepy.

  4. Sorry, Anna. This is (I thought) a pretty well-known calendar, but rather tame seeing as all of the men (I have a suspicion some or all of them are not real priests) are properly and fully attired.

    This calendar of semi-nude choristers of Portsmouth Cathedral (UK), on the hand, gives me the creeps.

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