As readers of this blog know, I have recently been going shopping for speciality items for bishops. Shopping is really not my thing, but as it turns out a great many people have been following this particular element of my recent vocational evolution with great interest. One journalist told me at one point not to be surprised if people were really curious about the shopping. “Great,” I replied dryly, “I’ll be the Kate Middleton of the episcopal world.” His reply? “I wish you had said that on camera!” Um, no.
Now there is actually an official basic standard for some of the elements of the episcopal uniform. For example, the Ceremonial for Bishops says the following at paragraph 1199:
This is the choir dress of the bishop both inside and outside his diocese: purple cassock; purple silk sash, with silk fringes at both ends (but without tassels); rochet of linen or some similar material; purple mozzetta (without hood); over the mozetta the pectoral cross with cord of green interwoven with gold strands; purple skullcap; purple biretta with tassel. Purple stockings are also worn.
Purple stockings? Is this for real? And yet, it is.
And we are not talking about any old purple either: as I have recently learned, episcopal purple is somewhere between fuschia and magenta. This is far more information about “purple” than I ever thought I’d ever need. No wonder most bishops I know don’t have the special socks.
And yet, I am a by-the-book kind of guy, so I figured I should get some just in case they would come in handy. “So where the heck are you going to get men’s fuschia socks?” asked a good friend of mine recently, as we were discussing my shopping list.
A good question, and yet another reason why, when this is all over, I am going to write a “survival guide to being named bishop” for the benefit of those appointed in the future. In fact, I had gotten some socks in the mail a couple of days prior to our conversation. “Did you order them from Rome? They must have been expensive,” he wondered.
“In fact, they weren’t expensive at all,” I replied, “I got them from Florida.”
“Florida? There’s a store for bishop’s stuff in Florida?”
“Not that I know of,” I answered with an impish grin, “but there *is* a store called WeLoveColors.com.”
Yep, that’s where I got them. And yes, we had a good laugh over that. Sometimes you have to love the Internet. Next thing you know I will be buying mitres on eBay. Not!
