On, Off, and a Partial Return

A biretta is put on and taken off, repeatedly, and the rules for that were once as precise as the rules for anything else. It is worn in procession to and from the altar and while seated. It is removed on arrival at the altar, at the name of Jesus, at the Gloria Patri, and whenever the wearer stands to pray. A priest hearing confessions wears it. A preacher may wear it in the pulpit. Servers were trained to take it and hold it, and the small business of passing a cap at the right moment is one of the more visible skills of a well-drilled sanctuary.

Nothing after the Second Vatican Council abolished it. What happened was quieter: the 1969 instruction on the dress of prelates simplified choir dress considerably, the general mood ran against clerical distinctiveness, and the biretta fell out of use in most places within a decade without ever being forbidden. For a generation it was seen mainly at funerals and in photographs.

Its partial return since the 1990s has come chiefly from younger clergy in the Latin church and, in parallel, from Anglo-Catholic parishes, and it is generally understood as a deliberate signal rather than as an unremarkable habit. A hat that once meant nothing more than that its wearer was a cleric now means that its wearer has chosen to wear it.