Religion: Hats Off

Britain’s plump, progressive Archbishop of Canterbury has long backed sweeping social and economic reforms. Last fortnight he authorized a church reform. Since British clothes rationing now limits even millinery, he told Anglican churchwomen that they could ignore St. Paul’s 1,900-year-old edict (“Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head”), and stop wearing hats in church.

Shocked guardians of tradition wrote their customary letters to the Times. Said one: “Lutheranism and the Church of England have done more to eliminate divine law from mankind than even Marxism has done.”