Page:Vactican as a World Power.djvu/409

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CARDINAL'S ATTIRE 395

requirements and are o princely splendour. On the other hand, the cardinal's street attire is simple, consisting of a black soutane with red buttons and cuffs, a little shoulder cape, a sash o red moire, red stock- ings with black or dull red buckle shoes, a black fur hat with a reddish gold cord. With this there goes a broad cape made of red or violet moire. Cardinals who are members of religious Orders wear the same street attire, but their ceremonial robes are much simpler because they always wear cloth and never silk. In addition their vesture conforms to the colour of their religious habit, with the exception of a cardinal red head-cover.

The red hat unusually flat in shape displayed in old pictures is not worn today. This the Pope gives every new cardinal at the Public Consistory which meets three days after the Secret Consistory. A recipient resident outside Rome must appear in the city before a year has gone by to receive this hat. Then this most ancient insignia of rank does not appear again until the cardinal dies. It reposes on his coffin and hangs over his grave. Before the newly created princes of the Church receive this hat, they swear an oath of loyalty in the Six- tine Chapel in the presence of the three deacons of the cardinalate and the Cardinal-Chamberlain. They avow that they will preserve and protect the Roman See and the possessions of St. Peter against all enemies, that they will win back what has been lost, and that they will neither permit nor desire that the cities and territories of the Papal States be secularized or taken away. This oath was taken even when there were no longer any Papal States, for the Church never abandoned its claim to worldly power and possessions.

In the Sala Regia the dignitaries of the Church and a selected group of laymen, including Roman nobility and the diplomatic corps, as- semble about the Pope, who is seated on his throne. The new wearers of the purple appear, fall upon their knees, kiss the Pope's foot and hand, and receive from him and all cardinals the customary two-fold priestly embrace. The Pope places on the head of each a red hat, "in honour of Almighty God and for the embellishment of the Apostolic See" as a sign that they "are to be fearless warriors for the Holy Faith, for the peace and tranquillity of the Christian people, for the growth and preservation of the Roman Church, usque ad san- guinis effusionem inclusive (even to the shedding of blood) ." The


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