Happy Feast of the Holy Name of Mary!
343 years ago today the Winged Hussars Arrived
The Battle of Vienna. To save Christendom from the Ottoman horde, led by the King of Poland
The largest cavalry charge in human history pic.twitter.com/kmi8vv77lM
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) September 12, 2026
These were/are in the pews of my home parish in St. Paul. Nice to see.
You know you are going to participate in an excellent liturgy when you show up and see these on all the pews.
IYKYK pic.twitter.com/QT0rFhNt69
— Kale Zelden (@kalezelden) September 10, 2026
Bring back hats.
Black to move and mate in 4.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Took me forever to figure out what those were when I first encountered them.
My parish still has the hat holders on them. People think they’re for holding their jackets.
As a kid with undiagnosed ADHD, they were the ultimate fidget tool during long boring homilies.
Sadly, Kale Zelden is incorrect because the clips last longer than the priest assignments.
My local church has these leftovers from yesteryear, but a pastor whose homilies often result in me highlighting his errors to my kids on the way home. He also did away with patens, if you can believe that.
So, no, not a reliable sign.
Yes, the clip for Mens’ hats. It usually means that it’s an older church and has not been completely wreckovated. Perhaps even altar rails, but probably not. I think that at the minimum most older churches installed a new second rate freestanding altar and often ripped out the beautifully designed altar rails. We mere blessed, however, ten years ago to have new pastor who made it a project to renovate in a positive way our very plain 1970 era church by adding an additional new high altar with a new tabernacle, a marble altar rail, new side altars saved from a closed church with gilded statues of the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, hand carved Stations of the Cross, etc
Pace Kale (and you, Pater), the first time I saw those curiosities in person, the Mass was about as pablumatic as it gets. Not offensively abusive—more offensively bland.
Pew hat clip?
1. . . . . . . B-h2+
2. K-h1 . . B-g3+ (discovered)
3. K-g1 . . Q-h2+
4. K-f1 . . Q+f2#
Black to move and mate in 4
1. … Bh2+
2. Kh1 forced Bg3+
3. Kg1 forced Qh2+
4. Kf1 forced Qxf2#
B-h2+, K-h1
B-g3+, K-g1
Q-h2+, k-f1
Qxf2++
Those bring back memories! The church I attended for the first few years of my life (early 60’s) had them, but at that time the more common practice – we usually attended the High Mass – was after the gents e.g. my father plunked down their “seat money” an usher would take his hat, lead the family to a pew, and line the hats up on the window sill. As the Mass ended they circulated discreetly and retrieved/returned the hats. Even as men’s hats went out of vogue and haberdashers went out of business (thanks in large part to J. F. Kennedy) the initial post-Conciliar changes were being implemented… does anyone else recall large – perhaps 11” x 17” – laminated cards with the English and Latin responses being placed in the pews ca. 1965-67? Since very few of the men were still wearing hats by then, the hat clips were repurposed to hold the cards! “Thou shalt actively participate and thou shalt like it!”
(A funny coincidence – I made a retreat this weekend… chapel was built <20y ago – exclusively for the TLM – but the pews were salvaged from a church in Boston and still have their hat clips!)
They have hat clips at my diocese’s Cathedral! Which, you all might be tickled to know, is currently being restored: Tabernacle back into the sanctuary, renovated baptistry, and I just found out yesterday, THEY’RE PUTTING THE COMMUNION RAIL BACK IN!! Deo gratias!