Do Elephants Jump? (9 page)

And what about France? Does Campbell’s include an accent mark over the
e
?

The media relations representatives at Campbell’s aren’t exactly inundated with this question, but they researched it for us and graciously responded with the disappointing answer: Campbell’s Alphabet Soup is sold only in North America. We urge reconsideration. Contemplate the potential of Campbell’s Cyrillic Soup!

Much to our shock, there really is a “who.” The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is composed of about seventy member countries, exclusively nations that border an ocean (eat your heart out, Switzerland!). Part of their charter is to assure the greatest possible uniformity in nautical charts and documents, including determining the official, standardized ocean boundaries.

All of the oceans of the world are connected to one another — you could theoretically row from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic Ocean (but, boy, would your arms be tired). No one would dispute the borders of the oceans that hit a landmass, but what about the 71 percent of the earth that is covered by sea?

The IHO issues a publication, “Limits of Oceans and Seas,” that determines exactly where these water borders are located, but is used more by researchers than sailors. Michel Huet, chief engineer at the International Hydrographic Bureau, the central office of the IHO, wrote to
Imponderables
and quoted “Limits of Oceans and Seas”:

Essentially, a committee of maritime nations determines the borders and titles for the oceans.

How would the IHO decide on the border between the Atlantic and Pacific? A somewhat arbitrary man-drawn line was agreed upon that extends from Cape Horn, on the southern tip of South America, across the Drake Passage to Antarctica. A specific longitude was chosen, so the border goes exactly north-south from the cape to Antarctica.

Of course, there are no Y
OU ARE
L
EAVING THE
P
ACIFIC
O
CEAN
, W
ELCOME TO THE
A
TLANTIC
O
CEAN
signs posted along the longitude. But a sailor with decent navigational equipment could determine which ocean he was in — likewise with the boundaries between other oceans.

Unlike the United Nations, most of the time the IHO does not become embroiled in political disputes, presumably because the precise location of the oceans’ borders has no commercial or military implications. Disputes are not unheard of, though. For example, Korea and Japan recently tussled about the designation of the sea that divides their countries. Traditionally, the body of water has been called the Sea of Japan, but Korea wanted it changed to “East Sea.”

Perhaps we were dozing during some of the year 2000 hoopla, but much to our surprise, the IHO was involved with a rather important event in that year — the debut of a new ocean. The southernmost parts of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans (including all the water surrounding Antarctica), up to 60 degrees south, were dubbed the “Southern Ocean.” The name was approved by a majority of the IHO and went into effect in 1999, with Australia among the dissenters. Why wasn’t this a bigger deal than Y2K?

Imponderables
readers are asserting their spiritual side. At least you seem to be curious about superficial questions about Catholic priests and the clothes they wear, and that’s good enough for us. Most readers assume that every vestment was adopted for its symbolic meaning, but in reality many of the clothes priests wear reflect the everyday dress of nonreligious folks nearly two millennia ago.

As John Dollison, author of the whimsical but solidly researched book
Pope-Pourri,
put it:

Not until the sixth century did the Church start to codify the dress of priests, and mandate that special garb be worn outside of the sanctuary. Even if most Catholics have no idea of the reasons for the uniforms, Dr. Brian Butler, of the U.S. Catholic Historical Society, feels: “The Church wants priests to be recognized easily by the laity. This is in the interest of both parties.” You’re unlikely to see priests in pastels soon.

Some priests started wearing black vestments in the early days of Christianity, as Father Kevin Vaillancourt, of the Society of Traditional Roman Catholics, explains:

But by no means was there uniformity among priests in their garb until much later. Professor Marie Anne Mayeski, of the theology department of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, points out that no specific color was required until after the Council of Trent (1545–1563), and that a response to the Reformation might have been partly responsible for the codification of clerical garb:

There are exceptions to the generalization that priests wear black vestments. Higher-ranking priests put a little color in their garb. Cardinals’ cassocks feature scarlet buttons, trim, and inside hems; bishops and other higher officials don amaranth; and chaplains to the Pope wear purple trim. During liturgical ceremonies, the cardinals wear all-scarlet cassocks, bishops wear purple, while parish priests wear black, although there are even exceptions here — a few dioceses, especially in warm-weather areas such as South America and Africa, allow priests to wear white cassocks, with trim indicating their rank.

Blame it on Pius V, who assumed the papacy from 1566 until his death in 1572. For centuries before that, popes wore red. Why the change? Reverend Monsignor Dr. Alan F. Detscher, executive director of the Secretariat for the Liturgy, explains:

Like other religious traditions, what might have started as a personal predilection became codified to the point where now there are elaborate agreements about color codes — you’d think we were talking about battling VH-1 Divas who feared clashing outfits. For example, when the queen of England visits the Vatican, she wears black, as she is technically representing the Protestant Anglican church. But when the Pope visits her at Buckingham Palace, she can wear chartreuse if that’s what she fancies.

We have our old friend Pope Pius V to “blame” for the pope wearing white, but he did not originate the use of the skullcap, properly called a zucchetto. Its use goes back to at least the thirteenth century. The zucchetto resembles the Jewish skullcap, the yarmulke, but its original purpose was quite different.

In the Middle Ages, when Catholic priests embraced celibacy, a ring of hair was removed from the top of their head, the tonsure. Churches and monasteries of this era weren’t renowned for their creature comforts — the purpose of the zucchetto was to cover the “bald spot” in order for these often elderly men to retain heat in cold, drafty conditions. A cap that was sometimes used by clerics in the same era, the
camauro
, covered the ears and the whole back of the head, and was even more effective in staving off the cold. The tonsure was eliminated after the Second Vatican Council, but the headgear has lived on.

At no point has the zucchetto been worn exclusively by the pope, but since a proclamation by Pope Paul VI in 1968, only members of the hierarchy are required to wear the skullcap. You can tell the rank of a cleric without a scorecard — the color of the zucchetto is a tip-off.

Only the pope may wear white, with the exception of orders whose habits are white, such as the Norbertines and Dominicans. Once again, Pope Pius V claimed the white color in honor of his Dominican order. Cardinals wear red zucchettos. Patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops sport a violetlike amaranth red zucchetto, and the “lower” deacons and priests wear black, although few priests wear zucchettos anymore.

How do clerics fasten the zucchetto on their heads? Evidently with some difficulty. According to Reverend Monsignor Dr. Alan F. Detscher,

The mitre, the double-pointed hat that the pope wears during ceremonial proceedings, is even older than the zucchetto — dating back to the tenth century — and can be worn by bishops and cardinals, as well as the pope. The hat features two cone-shaped peaks, divided by a piece of material that can fold together.

The mitre has undergone so many transformations in form that it is hardly recognizable as the original, simple cone-shaped hat that was worn by laypeople in Rome. At one point in the twelfth century, the mitre was shaped with the two points on the end, with a “valley” in between. But as John Dollison, author of
Pope-Pourri
notes, this created a problem: