The Horrors
of the Cassock

D Vautier
Novotiate
1/2023

I think that my most dreaded experience in Novitiate and at DBC was wearing a cassock.  It was probably because I was unquestionably the world’s greatest sweat hog and the unbearable humidity of New Jersey did not help.  The “knee-cruncher” kneelers were child’s play when you want real mortification.

As I remember, it was in the bleak September 1960 we novices boarded the great DBC bus and had a fun ride to downtown Manhattan.  Tony Fasulo was driver-in-charge because nobody knew Downtown New York better than he did.  We stopped at this Jewish clothing store (is there any other type of clothing store in NY?) and were each measured for our brand new cassocks along with these funny three-winged hats called Berettas.  My cassock fit like a sweaty glove, I mean like almost a second skin.  It had well over 32 difficult buttons running down the front and was made of a heavy cotton fabric especially designed to enhance the sweating process. I was OK up until investiture after which time I had to wear the damn thing full on.  My armpits turned into rivers.  Every night I would be washing the salt circles off my cassock so it would be dry by morning.  I sewed plastic inside the cassock around the arms to try to prevent the salt rings.  It didn’t help.  I was known as the “ring boy”.

More insanity was soon to follow.  We were encouraged to play handball behind the Gym during the short brakes IN OUR CASSOCKS.  This was one time I really envied the coadjutors who did not have to wear the torture chamber.

We needed to have a class in cassock 101 so we knew the correct way to go to the bathroom, or walk upstairs while carrying something, or the fastest way to get out of the thing, or into it before the bell rang, or how to keep the roman collar from slipping down inside and chocking and how to avoid neck rash.