Weird Nun

Well, so we were trudging through the Forum, and the day was turning from pleasantly pastoral to just plain hot, when I spotted another potential entry for A Field Guide to European Nuns, a suppliment to the magnum opus prospectively entitled James Audubon's Nuns of North America that Emily and I are planning to compile some day when we have ludicrous amounts of free time.

Anyway, as habits go, this has got to be one of the more unusual ones. First, let me explain she was in a big herd of priests and religious, including what might have been a Cistercian or a Dominican laybrother in black scapular, white tunic and broad black fascia. Without that context I might have mistaken the young woman for an Anglican cleric or maybe even a Lutheran minister. She was a tall, well-balanced, amazonian sort of woman, hatless, with bobbed hair of an almost geometric rigor. She was wearing what can be only described as a female cassock. It was buttonless, cream-colored, pleated down the front in a manner that resembled a scapular, with a high standing collar and narrower pleats down the back. She wore a narrow sash at her waist, ties hanging to her left, resembling in cut the cincture worn with a Jesuit-style habit. Unremarkable shoes, big satchel slung over her shoulder, a gold Greek cross with lobed ends hanging at her chest. Like me, she looked tired. And then she disappeared into the touring group, trudging off towards the Arch of Septimus Severis. Just another pilgrim out of millions.

Quite peculiar. I usually can recognize these folks, but this time I'm stumped. Almost. The author of the (surprisingly funny and almost reverent) book When in Rome: A Unauthorized Guide to the Vatican noted he saw a similarly-dressed woman in St. Peter's Square once, except she was in sky blue. He also describes her, strangely enough, as wearing a Roman collar, probably a misinterpretation of the plain high collar of young nun I spotted. He asked her what organization she represented and she said it was an Italian order, the Oblates of Our Lady of Fatima. Also unknown to me. I can't find a scrap of information about this group online, too, which deepens the mystery. Most interesting. Perhaps one of my learned and gentle readers can shed some light on this sartorial-monastic curiosity?