Today I decided not to wear the saturno on my way from our Mascherone residence to the Biblicum. In front of Sant'Andrea della Valle there was a parade of children in colorful Andaluz looking costumes coming from a performance, and one of them was a boy in cassock and saturno priest hat!
From the likes of children!
Wear the priest hat at least for the sake of the children!
A few months ago an elderly Hungarian golden jubilarian priest stopped me in Piazza Navona to congratulate me on the saturno because it has very special significance for him who knew the Rome of the ubiquitous priest hat.
Another senior priest of my residence related how as a young student they were always required to carry that hat and he would carry it in his hand, except when it rained! After a year now I can attest to it's efficacy against all of the Roman elements.
A priest of Opus Dei recently criticized it saying that having worked with perhaps thousands of priests he had never seen this type of hat before! I'm not sure what that means? It is now normal for priests not to know what the normal priest hat is!
Wear the public priest hat in order to promote the cassock! One ought not go without the other, despite an age which popularizes poor taste identity confusion.
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