Tuesday, July 07, 2015

The 17th Century Chinese “Biretta”

What could have been, the continued development of a Chinese variant of the Roman rite. What would we make of a woman wearing a biretta? (Though there are some who do wear the doctoral version with four peaks, as opposed to the priestly one with three.) Inappropriate? Presumptuous? Even if it is in accord with their rank, but that is the question - should they have been elevated to it in the first place?


The egalitarians will say yes, but they ignore the place of the school in broader political community; and many of these universities do not exist as a part of a political community, as those population centers are no longer political communities. When the industrial age ends, so will the misallocation of resources in academia.

"That said, rumor has it that the Hong Kong Archdiocese is considering reviving the tradition. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!"

Given the loss of the cultural significance of (traditional) hats to Chinese people, why bother? If there were a group of Christian monks who adapted such hats for monastic life, that would be one thing, since a monastery could be a place for the development of a Chinese form of Christianity, but in a fairly Westernized and 'modernized' city like Hong Kong? The Latin diocese of Hong Kong should focus more attention on catechesis.

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